


Politics is a House of Cards

by webgeekist



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-15
Updated: 2015-09-16
Packaged: 2018-03-30 15:06:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 33,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3941332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/webgeekist/pseuds/webgeekist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The higher Regina Mills climbs on the political ladder, the more enemies she makes.  As the President of the United States, there's no one left on earth that she believes she can trust...except Emma Swan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For Race, who tolerates me way more than I deserve.

"You can't honestly expect us to play ball with this, Regina.  You've wildly overstepped your authority with a dozen executive orders on bills Congress refused to pass, you misappropriated FEMA funds to staff an employment relief package that both parties refused to sign, and Russia's locking horns with Israel over a UN mission on Israeli soil."  

The man twisted his cane in his hand as he spoke, grinding its tip into the plush carpet beneath the sofa he was seated upon.  His suit was black and well-tailored, accented with a red tie and handkerchief, and despite how lazily he draped himself over the upholstery managed to have hardly a wrinkle out of place.

"We won't change the bill.  Both houses are agreed.  Your FEMA funds will be reallocated."

"I'll veto the bill."

"Then the eastern seaboard will be torn to shreds by the hurricane, millions will suffer, and it will be your fault."

She hated this man.  He had aspirations for the presidency before she managed to best him in the general election, and he had been a thorn in her side ever since.  But, he was the Senate majority leader, and a member of the opposing party.  He was bound to be a pain in her ass.

Regina Mills had made a career of eliminating such nuisances, until recently.  The office of the President of the United States, as it turns out, makes dealing with troublesome political enemies much harder.

"Yes, Senator Gold, I may have overstepped my authority for the jobs program -- which is working, by the way.  And my use of the Executive Order has plenty of precedent thanks to the last Republican to hold this office."

"States of emergency," he defended.

"Which still exist," she replied, "because he never put together exit strategies for any of them."

"Regardless, Regina, your jobs plan is over, and if you do not sign that bill, we will crucify you in the next election."  He stood to his full height, a diminutive stature with a slender frame, and leveled his beady gaze at the still-seated president.  "Now, if that will be all..."

Rarely did another politician get under her skin the way this man did.  It was a gift that few people possessed, and that made him dangerous.  She stood and folded her hands across her chest as he turned toward the door.  "You have not been excused, Senator."

"I wasn't aware this was a monarchy, Regina."

"There is protocol.  And you will refer to me as Madame President."

He stopped, just shy of the door, and turned to face her.  "Publicly.  Always.  Privately, we're both very aware that you do not deserve that title."  

The click of the door as it shut behind him sounded more like a gunshot in the President's head.  It may as well have been -- he had her in scope, and any move she could make was political assassination.

She looked down at the carpet, at its familiar lines and symbols and how they came together to form the seal of the President of the United States.  There was a divot in the eagle's eye, right where Gold's cane had dug into the fibers.

"Madame President?"

She looked up as her Chief of Staff walked in, cut in a smart pantsuit, with her hair tied back.  She was a replacement for Graham, her previous chief of staff, and still relatively new.  But in the short time she's been there she had worked miracles with Graham's competent if slightly under-experienced staff.  After he suffered a sudden heart attack, Emma was his immediate suggestion for a replacement, and came highly recommended by anyone that could be asked.

They had met before, some eight years previous on a campaign trail.  Her new staff member had spent the entire time berating the then-senator for her opinions on immigration and tax reform.

She was idealistic, and right as it turned out -- those positions had been those of the party, and not specifically Regina's own.  The senator from Maine took an instant liking to the beautiful blonde, even if it came out as derision and dismissal.

That kind of honesty wasn't always a good trait in a campaign manager.  It was invaluable, however, in a Chief of Staff, and so far Emma Swan had done a remarkable job.

"How bad was it?"

Regina sighed and walked back to her desk.  "Catastrophic.  I'm not sure there's an elegant solution to this problem."

Emma stood in front of the desk, beyond the edge of the round carpet on the floor.  "As you've reminded me many times, Madame President, that's the nature of politics."

Regina smiled -- ah, she was listening.  "I suppose."

The president had built her campaign around a comprehensive employment package that Congress refused to pass.  Under the guise of emergency aid, she managed to get it up and running in Washington D.C. as a FEMA-funded program, bypassing the state legislators necessary in any other place and going straight to the mayor, because he was the highest authority in the District of Columbia.

"The jobs bill is working, Emma.  So many people have signed up.  Employment numbers have never been better here, and people are taking advantage of it.  Spending figures have risen, the number of people taking advantage of preventative healthcare has gone up...how can I take these jobs from these people?"

Emma shrugged, as was her habit.  "They can't work if they're dead, and if that hurricane makes landfall over New York like it's projected to..."

"It could turn," Regina insisted.

"But what if it doesn't?"

The president folded her arms over.  "You think I should sign the bill."

Emma was silent for a long, uncharacteristic moment.  Her lips twisted upward in a comically thoughtful frown.

"I think Senator Gold is a sexist, misogynistic son of a bitch who is very good at getting people to do what he wants under the guise of it being the greater good, when really it's all in his own self-interest."  She took the remaining two steps toward the resolute desk.  "And I think he's right.  You have to sign the bill.  People's lives depend on it."

Regina sighed, then nodded.  She hated to hear that truth, but couldn’t blame Emma for it.  Deep down, she knew she had no choice.  "Thank you for your candor, Emma.  What was it you needed to see me about?"

The blonde woman smiled.  "I just wanted to make sure you hadn't ripped Gold's heart out with your bare hands and crushed it to dust.  I know you had to be tempted.  Oh, and Henry will be back from his school field trip in about an hour.  You asked me to remind you.  Did you need anything from me Madame President?"

Regina smiled, but shook her head.  "No.  Thank you."

The blonde made her way to the door, but paused just before it and looked to the settee in front of the desk, where Gold had sat and where so many foreign and domestic dignitaries before him had tried to play the president.

"You should get a different carpet."

"What?"

"It's always bothered me that the seal of the president is on the floor like that.  It gives people like Gold free reign to literally walk all over the symbol of the highest office."

"And what would you recommend in its place?"

"Something in a nice yellow, I think."

Regina laughed as Emma left the office.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

The skies outside were dark -- a storm sat off the coast, and even as far away from shore as they were at the White House, it could be seen looming across the horizon.

Mocking.

The hurricane would not make landfall -- it was veering slowly off to the northeast.

She had signed the bill for nothing.

"You did the right thing."

Regina sighed and turned away from the window, toward the woman seated on the sofa in the Residence's common area, the ice in the near-empty glass of whiskey clinking as she moved.  "I know.  And I might have killed any chance of getting re-elected in the process."

"You can campaign on you progress, though.  The jobs package worked.  Congress just...didn't like how you went about it."

"And you?"  Regina sat beside Emma and reached out for the crystal decanter filled with amber liquid.  "You haven't said a word about it.  Do you think I did something illegal?"

"I think it's an appropriations issue," she replied.  "I might have morals, but I'm not an actual lawyer, and those I know can twist the law to suit whatever they want."

"That's not an answer."

Emma sipped at her own glass and sighed.  "I don't know.  I try not to think about it, actually."

"Because you don't approve of my methods?"

"No, because I don't approve of politics."

Regina started to laugh, but the way Emma's face was set seemed less like a joke.  "You're...serious.  You work in politics.  How can you compartmentalize that?"

The other woman shrugged.  "I got into the business because I wanted to make a difference.  I ran campaigns because I thought I'd found worthwhile people that would do exactly that."

"And you were good at your job.  That's why I gave you this one."

She shrugged again and took another sip.  "I never won a campaign for a worthwhile candidate."

"You've won every campaign you ran."

Emma said nothing.

"Then why did you come work for me?"

Emma tilted her head.  "I have a feeling about people.  I can tell whether or not they're a good person.  I ignored that instinct a little in the past, let silver tongues convince me that my gut is wrong.  It's been a long time since I've worked for a good person."

The president took a sip.  "I'm not a good person."

"Yes, you are.  It's buried deep below the ruthless mask you wear for political gain, but you are a good person, Regina."

The president’s eyebrow shot up as Emma's inebriated mind caught up to the words she'd said.  Eyes wide, near panic, she stammered, "I mean...uh...Madame President, of course.  I didn't mean to be so casual.  It's the liquor, I swear."

"Emma."

The blonde's panic eased as Regina placed a drink-cooled hand over fidgeting fingers and squeezed.  "You and I are drinking together, in what counts as my home, and I would like to think we are friends.  Here in the Residence, you may call me Regina.  I don't mind."

Emma eased back into the couch and sighed, then smiled.

"See?  You're already proving me right." 


	3. Chapter 3

Before the White House, Henry’s life had been easier to keep normal. He went to private schools, sure, but the simple act of hosting a birthday party wasn’t something that required security clearances and several dozen armed guards. When he was four, and Regina was still just a junior Senator, she had his party at Chuck E Cheese (as loathe as she was to allow her son to run around in such a germ-infested petri dish, he absolutely loved the ball pits), and there was little more involved than a few police officers and a signed contract. 

Henry's tenth birthday party was on the south lawn. His classmates at his private school were all invited, and their parents even showed up, it only for the novelty of visiting the White House. Most of them, truthfully, didn't agree with the President's politics, but Regina Mills was nothing if not a good hostess. The day would not be about her politics, or her agenda, or her at all. It was for her son.

Henry’s best friend at school was a boy named Neal, the son of David and Snow Charming, who ran an old money company worth billions and contributed huge sums of money to political interests. Despite the fact that those interests usually aligned with her party, the family had never contributed a dime to her war chest. 

And she’d tried -- oh, she’d tried to get that easy money, but...politics were complicated.

And Snow White, for all her pleasant airs, held grudges that rivaled Regina’s.

It didn't bother Regina, not anymore, but Neal was a good friend of Henry's, and the bad blood between their parents kept the two of them apart often.

Not on that day, however--the pair were having a merry round of tag with their classmates, the loyal team of two against ten. She smiled and watched the boys, studiously ignoring Snow as she grew closer and closer, pretending to study the beautiful blooms in the garden as she neared.

Emma came up next to her and stopped, standing resolutely by her boss’s side as if assigned to the detail, and Regina was surprised by how welcome a presence Emma Swan had become in general. Specifically, she would be a great buffer and relief from the impending clash of sweet-flavored derision and barely-contained snark.

“Thank god you’re here, Miss Swan. My least-favorite member of the St. Ursula’s PTA is headed in this direction.”

Emma leaned forward and caught sight of the woman in question, then leaned back immediately. Her wince didn’t go unnoticed.

“Um...Madame President, there’s something you might need to know…”

“Regina!”

The name came out in slow syllables, each emphasized at the end as if calling a child by their whole three names. Regina grit her teeth at the not-unintentional disrespect, but smiled the fake smile she used on the Russian president last time he tried to grope her ass and turned anyway.

“Snow,” she replied. “How are you? It’s been far too long.”

“Oh, I’m lovely.” She was short, with close-cropped hair that didn’t at all flatter her round face, and this way of speaking that turned disinterested into an art form. “David and I are doing some really wonderful charity work for the underprivileged. I’m sure that was your intention with the jobs bill, of course. And Neal is getting top marks in classes, even above Henry, which I find surprising. Is everything okay at home?”

Regina paused long enough to swallow the acerbic remark on the tip of her tongue and opened her mouth to speak when she felt more than saw Emma’s presence shift forward and into Snow’s view. The shorter woman’s face fell immediately, from the near-permanent smug smirk to a look that might resemble horrified on someone capable of feeling it.

“Emma!”

The blonde folded her arms over. “Snow.”

“What...how...what are you doing here?”

Regina looked between her employee and the supremely irritating woman before her. “Miss Swan is my Chief of Staff. That made headlines for a few days. Did you manage to miss the news, Snow?”

“I...excuse me.” The smaller woman bolted down the hedgerow, so fast and so close her skirt caught on the branches several times. Regina was amused by the exit, but shocked by it all the same, and turned after she was satisfied with Snow’s retreat to face Emma.

“How on earth did you do that?”

Emma shrugged. “She’s my half-sister.”

“You’re...you’re related to Snow Charming?”

“And David.”

“Well of course.” Regina folded her arms over. “They’re married.”

Emma laughed and shook her head. “No, I mean Snow’s father and David’s mother had an affair. It was a really, really messy way to grow up.”

Regina considered the woman’s resume -- acceptance into Yale and then Cornell, both on scholarship. Quit studies halfway through Cornell Law for reasons undisclosed. It was the only black spot on her sparkling record.

“They didn’t treat you the same, did they?”

Emma smiled in a strange way, and by now Regina had come to know that expression as something not at all mirthful. “I spent most of my life in boarding schools, away from both families so no one would be forced to live with the shame my presence represented all the time. Money ran out after high school -- I was on my own the second I turned eighteen, and really pretty grateful for it. I haven’t really been part of the family since, and I quit trying to make amends a long time ago. I haven’t seen any of them in...a decade. Or longer.”

“Until now.”

She nodded. “Until now.”

They stood in silence for a few minutes, watching the children play and the adults mingle. Regina watched Snow make it back to David and point, still horrified. David dropped his beer in shock, and it took everything in her not to laugh aloud at the man’s expresion.

“I knew they got married, but actually seeing my brother and my sister together squicks me the hell out.”

The president shook her head. “You have a very interesting family tree, Miss Swan.”

The blonde laughed. “Oh, Madame President, you have no idea.”

Regina watched another kind of smile bloom on Emma’s face, slowly morphing from wry to genuinely amused. She found herself curious about the motivations behind that wide yet mysterious grin, and the thoughts that generated them.

But after a moment, she caught herself simply staring at her chief of staff’s red lips, and looked away before she could be caught.

“I look forward to learning all about it one day, Miss Swan,” she said.

Emma stuck by Regina for the rest of the afternoon and helped to entertain the adult guests as best she could while Regina was busy with another. Between the pair of them, they managed to continue running a smooth party, much as they made an effective team at running a country. Regina was unused to having that kind of loyalty available to her from any kind of competent person.

At the end of the event, when she’d helped usher the last parent past the Secret Service guards at the gate, they sat side by side on one of the benches -- Neal would stay over for the evening, and the pair were playing in the inflatable ball pit.

“He’s always loved those godforsaken things.”

Emma laughed. “What kid doesn’t?”

Regina supposed she had a point, but: “I was never allowed. My mother was...very strict.”

If Emma had a comment or a question, she kept it to herself. Instead, she reached into a galvanized bucket next to her and pulled out two beers, then pried the bottlecaps off with the ring she wore.

“Nifty trick.”

She shrugged. “Learned it in college. But listen, Madame President, from what I’ve seen you’re a fantastic mother. You should be proud of the kid you’ve raised so far. Whatever your mother did or didn’t let you do...it’s good that you let him try new things.”

It felt good, Regina thought, to have a friend.

“Thanks,” she said, lifting her bottle. They clinked together softly, and the pair spent the length of their drinks in companionable silence.


	4. Chapter 4

“Mom, why can’t I go? He’s just another president!”

Regina smiled at her son, seated on his bed and pouting in a very cute manner that usually won arguments. Usually. “Sorry, my darling boy, not this time. It’s late, and this president isn’t like other presidents.”

“But all men are created equal!”

Regina bit her lip in an attempt not to laugh at the cleverness -- obviously, someone has been giving important historical documents to him to read. The business of governing didn’t afford her enough opportunity to do that herself, but of late, she wasn’t the only one minding his well-being. 

The assistance was both a welcome relief and a constant surprise.

“Oh they are,” she replied. “This man just thinks he’s more equal than others.”

She kissed his forehead as he muttered, “but I don’t know what that means…” yawning on the last word. Regina tucked the covers around his chin as he snuggled down into the bed. The familiar sharp ache in her heart at having to leave him swelled, tightening her throat and pushing at her ribs and despite the time, Regina lingered, stroking her fingertips through his silky hair, just watching him sleep. She hadn’t planned to be a mother, not after...well, not in the beginning anyway. But Henry was her own little miracle. She didn’t give birth to him but he had filled a hole in her heart all the same, one Regina had never hoped to heal. It hurt leaving him, and there were times when she felt guilt gnawing at her that she had to be apart from him so often, but he was hers and she treasured every second of their time together. Even if, inevitably, it had to end. 

Like now. 

Moving carefully, Regina walked to the door, softly clicking off the overhead light, leaving only the small warm glow from a tiny star nightlight plugged into the wall. The door made no noise when she closed it.

“That was a good line.”

The ache at leaving Henry dimmed, just a little. Regina turned, already smiling “So was his.”

The source of her son’s suddenly augmented education was dressed in a tasteful and well-cut black dress, elegant but functional, since she’d spend most of the evening on her feet. It held Regina still for a moment, the way the dress fell of the lines of a slender body, the way blonde curls were pulled up to sweep lightly across her neck. Since the president wasn’t married, both her Chiefs of Staff had stepped in on many occasions to help fill entertainment and hosting roles usually left to the First Lady, when there simply was no way that Regina herself could fill the two roles at once. Tonight, they would both have to deal with Kirill Ivanov, the Russian president, and the rest of his small army of dignitaries.

Emma would do well, as always, and Regina ignored the stray thread of jealousy over how little of the woman’s company she would get to enjoy herself, focusing instead on the unusual relief of being able to count on someone so fully. Trust, after all was a much safer emotion than jealousy. Still, Regina found she was unable to stop herself from saying something. 

“You look stunning, Emma.” 

Only the tiniest widening of Emma’s eyes - more than likely invisible to anyone else - indicated the comment was a surprise. Emma’s lips curved upward in a genuine smile, though. 

“Thank you, Madame President. You’re looking pretty put-together yourself.” That smile edged into a smirk and Regina let herself relax into the banter, rolling her eyes. 

“We’re still in the residence. You can still call me Regina, you know.”

Emma shrugged. “Not tonight, I think. We’re going to need our A game to deal with the Russians.”

And that, Regina supposed, was true enough, and she had to suppress the urge to sigh.

What would be a smaller affair in the dining room with any other head of state had become an affair that the East Room had to host instead, with a head count of 57 and one very pampered little dog. It was, by far, the least burdensome part of organizing this official visit. Many of the dignitaries the Russians were sending were on no-fly lists, and though their diplomatic immunity overrode that problem, Regina had no fewer than four heated conversations with the director of the CIA over the matter. If that weren’t enough, the Russian president himself was a problem, and had been a thorn in the side of the American president well before Regina took the office.

There was a reason no one had ever invited him to the White House, but she needed something from him.

Unfortunately, he was probably well aware of that.

They entered the ballroom with the formal announcement traditionally made at state dinners, and the room stood on its feet immediately. Some of her staff, cabinet members, and a handful of prominent legislators were invited, but it was Ivanov who made his way to greet Regina immediately.

The president was a tall and relatively slender man with dark, close-cropped hair, blue eyes, and a charming smile. He was attractive enough, and relatively young -- he’d won his party’s favor quickly and rose to lead by questionable methods. Having achieved the office at just 38, and under controversy, there were many in international circles who called Kirill Ivanov the Pirate President.

She could picture him in a black leather colonial jacket, with maybe a pegleg or something, and she used the image as a tactic to keep her own cool whenever the man tried everything to make her lose it.

“Thank you so very much for your hospitality, Madame President.” He took her hand and kissed the top of it -- it made her skin crawl, even after two years in office, when male leaders did that. It was rarely a compliment.

“Thank you again for coming, President Ivanov.”

“I have been in office long enough to see entire countries rise and fall, and this is the first invitation I have received to the White House. I should be thanking you. Please,” he offered his arm, and she grudgingly took it. “Shall we be seated? I have heard wonderful things about this...blue cheese and ribeye your chef has prepared. Tell me, where do you source your ingredients?”

It almost sounded like a question a spy would ask with the intention of spoiling the food chain, but Ivanov was too young to have been an actual KGB spy. Regina imagined, however, that he had still picked up a few tricks.

“The steak is prime Texas beef, the cheese I’m told is from an artisan cheesemaker in Vermont. Most of the greens and vegetables are grown in the White House gardens.” She paused. “Most visitors don’t ask about the specifics of my chef’s food sources.”

“Ah, I imagine most of your visitors do not enjoy cooking quite as much as I do, and as any chef will tell you, the better the ingredients, the better the meal.”

Regina nodded. “That is very true. Hopefully, our sources will be up to your standards.”

“I’m certain the meal will be exquisite.”

Regina checked over her shoulder for Emma. The blonde caught her eye and smiled reassuringly before walking over to intercept the U.N. ambassador.

Dinner progressed easily, with what passed for pleasant conversation at a dinner so filled with potential landmines and powerful (literally) personalities. The food really was amazing and there was hearty approval of what was served. Regina managed to enjoy a fair amount of the conversation, informal and relatively free of politics as it generally was over the meal. The Russian people were a good people, though politically just as touchy as Americans, with a long history of conflict and privations the American culture lacked. It made dealing with their delegation eternally interesting but often incredibly frustrating. Then again, that could be said of parties even within her own country, Regina mused to herself as she took a small bite of medium rare steak. Seated at her left was the Russian ambassador to the United Nations, a man whose name she had to concentrate not to mispronounce to sound like “schmee.” Seated at her right was the charismatic president, Emma on the other side to pull the president’s attention away from Regina when necessary.

The conversations with both men were necessary -- the Russians had recently and unexpectedly entered into a U.N. peacekeeping effort, and were stubbornly refusing to support an energy resolution that was in the best political and environmental interests of both countries. Her own Secretary of State and U.N. Ambassadors were also working the room, but the largest responsibility fell on the shoulders of the American head of state.

“I hear there’s quite the story behind the nickname you were given in the military, Mr. President.”

Ivanov turned his attention to Regina, perhaps for the first time since walking into the room. “Ah, yes, but it is such an old story, and so well-publicized. And to be honest, Madame President, I do not enjoy the nickname.”

That, Regina knew, was a lie. So many foreign heads of state would go into detail about how willing he was to tell that tale, and how animated he became when he described the specifics. As a captain in the army, he had briefly been taken prisoner in foreign territory, and within days was free and back on friendly soil. He had broken himself out with a fork, or so he would claim, and massacred the some 15 guards with a meat hook before freeing two of his men. He told that story at every state dinner at the Kremlin to intimidate the other heads of state. It was the kind of story that added spice to a political reputation over someone’s entire career, especially in a political climate like Russia where politics more often peeled back whatever civilized veneer people in this day and age liked to cloak it in. If Ivanov didn’t want to tell his boastful story there was a reason and Regina, sensing the shift in the winds with decades of experience behind her, braced herself just before the Russian president opened his mouth again. 

“I am much, much more interested in how you procured the title of Evil Queen.”

Half the room -- the American half -- went silent. Regina could have laughed. Whatever he was trying to do, if he really thought he was going to get under her skin with that title - one that, in her more darkly honest moments, she didn’t regret earning - Ivanov was sadly mistaken. 

With the ease of long practice, Regina smiled, fake and congenial. Instead of the usual political mask, though, she let just the barest thread of malice bleed into her expression. She’d been told once by a staffer she’d just fired that her smile looked like it was a death threat. Regina wasn’t above using that particular advantage. “I didn’t procure it,” she said. “I earned it. Or, so the Republicans claim. Frankly,” she paused just for a fraction of a second, letting that smile get a little bit more wicked and holding her Russian counterpart’s gaze. “I don’t put much credence in name calling by people I’ve beaten.” Regina didn’t quite stress the final word but it came out with all the smooth derision she could possibly manage and she watched in satisfaction as Ivanov’s expression flickered. Only for a second but it was there. 

The Americans kicked up some nervous laughter. Ivanov eventually smiled, and nodded.

“Indeed, Madame President. Very wise.” He returned to his food and Regina gave herself just a moment to savor the satisfaction. Only a moment though. Whatever Ivanov was driving at, he hadn’t got, and she wasn’t foolish enough, or hopeful enough, to think he’d just give up. 

Glancing down the table she caught Emma looking at her. Her Chief of Staff looked nothing but politely interested in her surroundings but when she met Regina’s gaze, green eyes sparkled, red-painted lips twitching upward for just an instant. It warmed something in Regina, softening the set of her shoulders for a moment of respite before she had to return her attention to someone else.

Dinner was over soon after that, and where Regina (and judging by their expressions some of her staff) would have retired, the night was young yet for the Russians. Which meant anyone who was anyone stayed. The forty or so people remaining moved into the vast living room, and the visiting delegation broke out the case of Russia’s finest vodka, because what was a state dinner with Russians without heavy drinking?

Regina was capable of holding her liquor -- you didn’t get to the White House without developing a tolerance for alcohol -- but past the point of wisdom, Ivanov kept feeding both the President and Chief of Staff shots. Neither woman could refuse without causing an international incident and more than once Regina withheld a private smile: it was a good thing they had plenty of practice with whiskey.

Five in, though, both were in need of a break.

Ivanov’s own chief of staff was a skilled piano player, apparently: he had taken to the keys the moment he saw the classic black baby grand tucked into the corner of the Red Room. Ivanov had a love of attention, so when cued by the beginning strains of Korobeiniki, he couldn’t resist taking center stage once again.

“You will all recognize this, I believe, but it is time to hear it as it sounds in my country.”

He didn’t have a bad voice, Regina would give him that, but the oddly-familiar tune was more reminiscent of a child’s lullaby, for some reason.

Emma came to stand beside her president, and Regina turned to take note of the slight sway in her stance.

“I left you with him too long tonight, didn’t I?”

Emma smiled thinly. “I’m not sure he would have let you take over. He’s uncomfortably forward.”

“Forward? Did he say something to you? What did he do?”

Emma looked at her, read what must have been something close to horror on her face, and shook her head.

“Innuendo. Veiled, but innuendo. He hasn’t propositioned me...though I wouldn’t put it past him at some point.” She looked forward, toward the man singing at increasingly high volumes. “Especially if he keeps drinking.”

“I suppose I don’t have to ask what your overall impression of him is.”

“Other than his eyelashes are so dark it looks like Captain Hook over there is wearing eyeliner?” She shrugged. “He’s brazen and entirely too sure of himself for a man singing the Tetris theme.”

And that made Regina laugh. “Oh, my god, you’re right! That’s where I’ve heard this before!”

Her amusement was short lived, however. The man in question was nearing them, his eyes set forward, still singing at an ever faster rate (as if the bricks were nearing the ceiling, Regina thought), until he was face to face with her.

She was smiling, still fake but charming enough. He was grinning devilishly as he finished the song.

Then he took Emma in his arms and kissed her.

 

////

 

The first office she ever held came as the prize for a long and brutal campaign in which she had engaged in a complete massacre of her opposition’s morality. Her win was by a comfortable margin, though criticized heavily for being overly antagonistic.

Regina was 10, and it was for class president.

In the wake of what surely must have felt like a humiliation to her opponent, the boy - Regina had long since forgotten his name - accused her of being a cheater and a liar in front of the class. It wasn’t true, but it had been easy to discolor his character in the minds of their peers. The boy - the oldest son of a Senator - was mean to the girls and bossy to other boys, a jerk at best and a bully at worst. His place in the social pecking order of the exclusive private school Regina attended was ensured by his father’s title and the fear other students had of his meaty fists, not genuine popularity. Regina merely exploited his weakness. 

In the flush of victory, though, she underestimated his reaction to defeat. 

So when he, easily five inches taller and thirty pounds bigger, put his face three inches away from her own and started calling her all manners of terrible names, poking his finger into her shoulder and looming over her, she reacted out of instinct and kneed him in the stomach, then shoved him away. She’d done it out of fear, no thought beyond protecting himself and with no intention to harm, just to escape, but they were standing at the edge of a small dais and he’d tripped, falling awkwardly. He’d broken his wrist on landing. 

The principal of her small parochial school called her parents out of concern, and it was her mother who came to meet with the him, after Regina unsuccessfully begged the man not to call. She remembered, vividly, sitting outside the office in the stone hallway, staring across the white tile floor at the trophy case on the other side while her stomach churned and her heart pounded, waiting for the adults to finish arguing about her.

When she emerged, Cora Mills was wearing this small smirk that Regina only ever saw when her mother succeeded in forcing her to do something she really didn’t want to, and the look her school’s administrator wore -- one of utter devastation, not a little fear, and a great deal of unspeakable rage -- was also familiar.

It’s how Regina felt about her mother about 80% of the time.

And in the car ride home, Cora laid out what had been discussed -- that her principal was disappointed in the tone of the election, but extremely dismayed by the violence of her reaction to her opponent’s fury. Regina tried to defend herself, and explained what kind of boy he really was to Cora, but her mother simply cut her off and continued her tale. The principal had considered removing Regina and even suspending her for her actions. Cora had, of course, spoken to him and ensured he saw reason. Regina would remain in school with no permanent marks on her record. 

Regina still remembered with vivid clarity the way her mother’s expression had shifted, the self-satisfied look sliding away to reveal what only Regina ever saw; that cold, hard, implacable spirit beneath the veneer of humanity Cora was so good at displaying to the rest of the world. Regina had long ago learned not to visibly recoil, but her insides churned nonetheless. 

“I never should have been called, Regina,” the imposing woman told her daughter, the perfectly modulated tone of her voice sharp enough to cut. “You should have been able to handle it yourself, diplomatically. Politics is compromise, my dear, and you let him see how weak you are today.”

It was a harsh lesson to teach a ten-year-old, but Cora Mills was a distant woman, at best, and cruel at worst. Regina learned never to be weak again, if only because it would save her the tongue lashing - or worse - she would get from her mother.

That lesson, that refusal to be viewed as ‘weak’ - to let anyone know they had gotten under her skin - had, unfortunately, proven most useful in her political career, even as it decimated most of Regina’s personal relationships. Before Henry she hadn’t thought about the price in decades. She thought about it now as she and the assembled guests all watched in horrified shock as Kirill Ivanov took advantage of her Chief of Staff, and it was that lesson alone that prevented her from striking out with a right hook instead of with words, her hand still trembling at her side as a hot surge of anger she hadn’t felt with such intensity in so long burning through her lungs.

“President Ivanov, I do believe you’ve allowed the moment to overtake you enough,” Regina’s voice was steady, but sharp enough to cut glass and she could actually feel the tension in the room ratchet up. 

‘Breathe,’ she reminded herself harshly, but the air was too warm and all she could see was the whiteness of Emma’s knuckles where her hands curled into fists at her sides. 

Time stretched like a rubber band...and then snapped back into place as Emma seemed to come to her senses, twisting her body in a short, fluid movement that Regina couldn’t quite make sense of but it left Emma standing free of the Russian president. Regina watched, still frozen in shock as something dark and angry flickered on the man’s face. It was gone almost immediately but Emma clearly saw it as well, because the blonde tensed and stepped back even further. He didn’t notice -- his attention no longer even on the woman he’d just accosted. Instead, Ivanov turned to Regina and smiled a grin that was nearly...predatory.

“But what is an evening without kissing a beautiful woman, no?”

Regina wanted to go to Emma, wanted to make sure she was alright, her own spine rigid with fury. She knew without looking though what she would find; Emma standing tall, eyes probably wild and lips pink lips pulled into the thin line she only sets when furious.

But she kept her mouth shut -- Ivanov was provoking them both, provoking them all with blatant disrespect that would only have been worse if he had assaulted Regina herself.

“Mister President, in civilized countries we ask for permission before kissing them,” Regina put as much bite into the words as she could without actually make it a snarl. She could see right through his actions and yet the transparency of his motives didn’t soothe her rage even a little. She wanted to destroy him. And she couldn’t. Not here and not like this. That knowledge made Regina seethe. 

“Please, Madame President, we both know that’s hardly true. What is the saying? Ah. When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

The man was infuriatingly brash. His reputation as a scoundrel was well-earned.

“Let’s leave these romans to their party and get to politics, then.”

She led the man out of the room, with a glance over her shoulder to check on Emma once more. Their eyes met, briefly, and the blonde nodded -- she would be all right, and they could discuss it later.

Her agenda was the energy resolution, and discussing whatever it was that the Russians wanted in exchange for their help ratifying the resolution. Russia and China both were creating controversy over it. Neither country had any vested economic interest in clean energy, if only because Russia had its own inexpensive oil supply and China’s sheer number of people made it inefficient, but Russia at least knew that the wells would one day run dry.

One of the two countries needed to agree to sign the resolution -- the alternatives were unlikely to work.

There was some idle but tense chitchat about countries and cultures and the plates in the china cabinet along the wall. Regina used it to cool herself down, but he was using it as a kind of bait, waiting for her to take it so he could set his hook.

After a time, she decided the best way to avoid the hook was to cut the line.

“What would it take for you to sign the resolution?”

Ivanov was intently studying one piece, a plate in the collection from George Washington’s administration. “Honestly, it’s not in our interest at the moment. We do not need foreign oil like you do, and we make quite a bit of money selling it. We cannot export energy.”

“It’s not simply for economic value -- it eases the carbon footprint of every human on this planet.”

“What is a footprint to the world, eh? Perhaps if my scientists would agree with yours…”

There was a long pause, and they stared at one another over the break in conversation, a physical game of chicken in a much larger, metaphorical contest.

He blinked first, though it was accompanied with a smirk that left her at ill-ease.

“Perhaps there are a few things.”

Regina folded her arms over. “Go ahead.”

“Hmm...I’d like the missiles defense sites in Europe taken offline.”

Her eyes widened. “All of them?”

“Da.”

She laughed. “Well, you’re not getting that. We can talk about a few of the sites closer to your borders, if you’d like.” She paused and studied her guest carefully -- he was still grinning. He was expecting that answer. “What else did you have in mind?”

He tilted his head for a moment. “Miss Swan.”

Regina paused as a cold chill ran down her spine. Maybe this was how Emma felt when she knew she couldn’t trust someone. “What about her?”

“If you let me have her for the evening, I will...sign this energy treaty of yours. No questions.”

Her hands wanted to clench into fists, something she hadn’t done since her very first campaign, and the very last time she showed weakness to an opponent. She managed to resist, but she couldn’t help the fury that crept along the edge of her voice no matter how hard she tried. “What on earth makes you think that my chief of staff can be solicited? And what on earth makes you think I could ever give you privileges that are hers alone to grant?”

“Come, Madame President, she is on your staff. You spend many hours with her, and you seem quite close. Have the two of you not...how do you say it? Fucked? Are you not lovers?”

He was goading her. Goddammit, somehow he was reading her, even though she knew for a fact there were no overt tells that hinted of her attraction to Emma. “That would be none of your business, even if your country did manage to grant basic human rights to homosexuals instead of imprisoning them without trial.”

“Oh, please. Two of my cabinet members are gay. My nephew is gay, and I love him like a son.”

“So is this some kind of voyeuristic curiosity, or are you really this despicable toward women?”

Ivanov smiled that same smile she’d seen earlier and walked up to her, until they were nose to nose.

“I simply want what you have, Regina.”

She looked the man in the eye for a long moment, weighing her options carefully. She could smile, dismiss the overt threat, and bid him to think about her original offer overnight, or she could dismiss him immediately, send him straight to his car, and risk the gender-biased press getting hold of the story and crucifying her for being overly-sensitive.

Something about the man she had noticed, that had unnerved her all evening, was the thing she sought and found in his eyes right then.

Intent.

“Then I think I’ll be keeping my missiles, and talking to Congress about moving them uncomfortably close to your borders. Maybe even close enough that they’re just kissing.”

Intent fell to anger, then to a cool rage. She turned her back on him, and walked to the door.

“Enjoy your stay, and have a safe trip back to Moscow, Kirill.”


	5. Chapter 5

Dismissing a foreign head of state summarily does not come without consequences. The immediate ones, of course, were the hurt feelings and uninformed outrage of some of her visitors: she might hold the office of President, but she was still expected to be the overly-gracious and accommodating hostess that every First Lady had been.

The Russians were insulted -- it didn't matter that the insult was justified.

Regina issued a few words of apology to her American guests as the foreign entourage made their exit, angry and shooting glares at everyone else. The Americans made their own exits bewildered but far more congenial, and Regina lingered long enough to keep up appearances. Emma was on the other side of the room, also doing her best to save face and direct what little staff was on hand for the dinner. 

“It’s late, and that was a lot of vodka. Let’s cut this one a bit short and have you all back another evening.”

She was wonderful, and excellent at her job.

She meant so much more to Regina than the boundaries of their jobs dictated. 

_She didn’t deserve any of this._

With hard-won discipline forged from decades in the political world, Regina forced those thoughts away. No matter what she felt at the moment, her position as President was a mantle that could never truly be laid aside until the day her replacement stepped into the office. What she’d done tonight…

She sighed deeply.

In crude terms, she’d just thrown a boulder into the pond of international relations, and there was no telling how far the ripples would spread or what they might wash to shore. President Regina Mills should have been much, much more worried about those unknown implications but...she wasn’t. Aware? Oh very much so. Yet she hadn’t felt any fear when she showed Ivanov the door.

As Regina watched her staff working the room and escorting out the last few guests, her mind wasn’t tracing the myriad potential scenarios that they all might face in the coming days. Instead, the smallest and most fragmentary of memories kept snagging her attention, like the sun glinting off bits of glass. Snatches of Emma’s voice, warm and confident, the straight line of Mulan’s back, Belle’s practiced yet bright smile. These were her people and for just those moments the future seemed very distant and abstract. Across the room, Emma turned smoothly and caught her eyes and for the span of two heartbeats, that was all Regina saw, until Emma turned away again, the moment pushed aside and Regina’s mind on her duties once more. 

With the guests gone she gathered her staff -- Mulan, the Deputy Chief of Staff and Belle, her Communications Director joined Emma in the entrance hall. She could read the tension in each of them, uncertainty being something political operators are taught to fear from very early in their career, and these were seasoned veterans. They all had very good reason to be concerned about the Russian president’s thunderous exit. They deserved answers, needed answers in order to do their jobs and yet despite the validity of those worries, Regina couldn’t quite bring herself to discuss what had truly happened. Not yet. Not with everyone.

She’d think about the ‘why’ of that later. 

She assured the younger members of her staff that this was something they would be able to fix, but not tonight. For now, Regina needed to retreat to the residence and calm her shaken nerves. She would be of no use to anyone otherwise.

They were her people and all of them accepted her word without question. In the wake of one of the most unsettling hours of her career, Regina found herself faced with unquestioning faith from her closest staff. 

It took her breath away, a little, even as it steeled something in her. 

One gaze in particular, familiar and understanding, steadied her more than anything else in the last hours. Regina gave a tiny tilt of her head in the direction of the residence, Emma replying with an equally subtle nod before turning back to the rest of the staff, re-affirming meetings, giving orders, giving them the direction they needed until it was time for a real battle plan. 

* * *

Once away from the room and her staff and...and away from Emma, however, the realization of what she had done fell back onto Regina’s shoulders with all the weight of that proverbial boulder. The path to the residence has never seemed so long -- every step she took felt increasingly labored and the plush red carpet under her heels reminding her morbidly of spilled blood. And as she walked, Regina thought back to her first and greatest lesson, that moment when she was ten and she pushed that boy off the stage.

Hadn’t she just done the same? Hadn’t she just let her anger override her sense?

Had she let herself be weak? 

Did it matter that the carpet she had laid out for the man was red, and she had pushed him down on purpose this time?

The paintings on the walls and the silent Marines standing guard had no answers for her. 

* * *

Her bedroom was large and well-appointed and secluded, the most secure room in the most secure house in the country, and it had never given her more comfort to know that no one was listening, and no one could see her. In the safety and quiet of her room, Regina pulled off her heels and left them on the floor. She walked to the sink in her bathroom, reached for her makeup remover and wiped away the mask of color she had worn all evening, then washed the rest of it away.

Her face, plain and unmade, held new wrinkles and lines at the edges of her mouth and between her eyebrows. Regina couldn’t remember the last time she had really looked at herself in the mirror, but the woman in front of her had aged disproportionately since whenever that had been. She sighed and leaned forward, letting her hands fall to the countertop and brace the weight of her body.

Two years ago, she thought she knew what to expect. She knew it would be a never-ending fight to gain recognition on the world stage, not because there weren’t women in other countries trying, but because her back bore the biggest and brightest star-spangled target in the world. And a lot of the people aiming for her were right here in her own country.

Regina was good at moving around such that most blows thrown at her just bounced right off. It was the dance all politicians participated in. Yet somehow, Kirill Ivanov had known exactly how to throw his punch. He’d done what no one had managed in years: gotten under her skin -- far beyond the usual irritation she felt for so many of her colleagues -- and made her truly, deeply furious. 

There was a soft rustle of fabric at the door -- Emma had followed her up and Regina didn’t know whether to laugh in despair or sag in relief. Her skin felt too small, too tight, her heart still beating too quickly in her chest in a way she hadn’t felt since...she couldn’t remember. It wasn’t simple fear, not the white-noised panic she’d felt those few times Henry had hurt himself, or been truly ill. It was more than the lingering rage, shading the edges of her vision red. 

It was more, and it was all because of Emma, and Regina felt like she was standing on a tightrope, just waiting to fall one way or the other. 

“I’m sorry,” Regina said without looking up. Maybe if she could just not look she could stay focused on what mattered, which was making sure her chief of staff was alright. “I knew his reputation was terrible, and I expected him to try to goad me, but I didn’t expect him to use you to do it.”

“Regina, I know you’re, like, the President of the United States and all, but you’re only human. No one expected that. I’m not even sure he expected that.” 

Sweet, remarkable Emma. Her voice sounded far steadier than Regina felt, a familiar teasing lilt and dry sarcasm lacing the words. 

Trying to set Regina at ease even now. 

That feeling of tightness, of pressure somewhere in her chest increased and Regina’s fingers tightened on the lip of the counter. 

“You would have been well within your rights to knee that man in the crotch.”

“My leg lifted out of instinct,” Emma replied easily. “It’s taken a while to get to this point, but I’ve actually learned how to stop myself before I create international incidents.”

“That’s what he did!” Regina shook her head, still unable to lift it and look Emma in the eye. “You had every right to defend yourself, even from the president of Russia. That you felt compelled to stay your knee at all is just... _wrong_.”

“Regina...I’m fine. As a woman I know what you’re saying, but as a representative of the United States I made my choice deliberately.” Regina felt the air shift as Emma stepped closer and suddenly there was a soft touch at her shoulder and though it was hesitant and gentle, it burned like a brand. Regina was so focused on the feeling of fingers against her skin she almost missed what Emma said next. “What I want to know is what happened to send him out of the room hurling the kinds of Russian expletives I can’t bring myself to translate.”

Regina finally looked up, her eyes meeting Emma’s in the mirror and something about the way she looked made Emma frown, painted lips turning farther downward in a frown and a single line forming between her brows. 

Regina glanced away, straightening. She needed to get control of herself, this was ridiculous.

“He wanted you,” she admitted at last, unable to stop herself from looking up at Emma again. 

Emma’s frown deepened. “What do you mean he wanted me?”

Regina almost rolled her eyes, at the genuine confusion in Emma’s voice. Emma Swan, for all her brilliance, was still sometimes an idiot. “For the night. As something little better than a high-dollar escort.”

Instead of the anger Regina expected, Emma just shrugged, brushing the implication away. “We’ve both been called worse, but surely that wasn’t a serious request. What did he really want?”

Regina’s skin was too hot, her ribs too tight. She shouldn’t be having this conversation. She should have sent Emma away the moment she ascertained her chief of staff was alright. The longer they kept talking, the more Regina could feel her control slipping. 

Still, she tried. 

“He asked for the missile sites in Europe,” she replied, more work than it should have been to keep her voice steady as she all too vividly recalled the hunger in the man’s eyes as he sneered at her. 

“Which ones?” 

“All of them.”

“And you offered to scale back a few close to the borders, right?”

“Of course,” Regina said, a bit more sharply than she intended. Emma, however, gave no indication she noticed, she just kept pushing. 

“And then he asked for me?”

“And I told him to get the hell out.”

Regina held Emma’s gaze in the mirror for a long, silent moment. She watched Emma’s face shift subtly between the kinds of emotions the taller woman could never completely hide, but Emma stayed silent. 

The tightness in Regina’s chest made it hard to breathe. She ached. 

When she could bear it no longer, Regina turned to the door and made to walk through.

She was stopped by a hand, closing over her wrist and holding tight.

“Regina...why? Why did you let him get to you like that? I know you...you don’t cave to ridiculous, demeaning demands like that. You don’t show weaknesses. How did he get to you?”

Regina’s jaw clenched, shame and the words of her mother flooding her mind. She tried again to look Emma directly in the eyes, and couldn’t find the strength. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Yeah, it does, and now you’ve possibly created an international incident...over me. Regina…”

“It’s done, Emma,” Regina sighed, weary and exhausted as the adrenaline of confrontation and...what had felt like hope...bled from her system. “It’s over. Now, we need to worry about damage control, and the next steps involved with getting the resolution passed without China or Russia.”

“No, I want to know why you let him goad you.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes it does! I’m a big girl and I can fight my own battles!”

“You weren’t in there! You didn’t see his eyes --”

“He couldn’t have been serious!”

“I couldn’t take that risk!”

Their volume had risen, and Regina’s words echoed so loud they both flinched, but now the truth was out and Regina couldn’t hold back any longer.

“He said, ‘I want what you have.’ I don’t own you, Emma. Politics might be a long game of chess, and ownership, and pieces kept in check with secrets, but I could never, ever…”

She couldn’t finish the sentence.

Emma sighed, and for the first time in the conversation she cracked something that resembled half a smile. The distance between them closed, but the blonde kept her hand around Regina’s wrist, her hold gentle now, almost a caress.

“You don’t own me.” Fingers slid down her wrist and palm, until they locked with her own, “but he’s right about one thing. You do have me. You have for a while.”

Again, a silence stretched before them, but for Regina it was filled with the pounding of her own heart, the rush of blood in her own head, and the world narrowed to Emma’s wide, green eyes and parted red lips. 

“Have I?” she whispered.

Emma stepped forward, so close that Regina could feel the heat of her body.

“Yes,” she replied, eyes bright and steady.

For the second time that night, Regina was weak and this time, she gave in willingly. 

She stepped forward, tilted her head, and closed the last distance between their lips.


	6. Chapter 6

Touch - not the impersonal ritual of a handshake or the overly familiar hands of her male colleagues on her shoulder or back - but real, wanted human connection had always been a rare and precious commodity in Regina Mills’ life.  She remembered little affection from her mother. Elegant, perfectly manicured hands on Regina’s face or shoulders or spine only made contact to correct posture or dole out punishment or - what Regina had learned to hate and fear most - the coldly, sickeningly gentle touch that conveyed one of Mother’s threats.  Her father’s hugs were a balm too rarely applied to a little girl’s bruised soul. Friendships with children her age were fleeting and often untrustworthy, and Regina learned very early never to reach out lest her hand be slapped away.

Daniel was an exception. The son of the grounds keeper of her parents’ estate, dark-haired and often covered in at least one layer of dirt with a kind face and gentle eyes.  He had been three years older than her and there were still days when the light shone through Regina’s window just right, or she caught the scent of pine or fresh cut grass that she remembered his gentle smile, the way he held her hand between his, his lips trembling and careful on her cheek. They were barely more than children and he was nothing but a promise Regina had already known not to believe, even as she held his hand and let him lead her through the carefully manicured lawns, the spotless stables, the rose gardens, each a different kingdom with a different story to be told. Daniel had been laughter and the outdoors and the warm silk of a horse’s coat beneath her fingers.  He’d made her heart beat fast in her chest with some unnamed longing that seemed to tease her with understanding just beyond her reach. When her mother arranged for the grounds manager and his son to be sent far, far away, Regina hadn’t been surprised.

There was Henry of course, but he loved and touched like a child, all sticky fingers and hugs to her legs (and now waist he was getting so tall and it hurt) and her back twinging when she picked him up to blow raspberries on his cheek until he shrieked with laughter.

Only one person in her life had ever shown Regina what it was to be touched by a lover.  He had been her first and she had thought, the last person she would ever take to bed with a need grander than mutual pleasure.  

Harvard was far enough away from home that, for the first time  in her life, she was able to understand what it felt like to have an unscripted life.  Studies kept it structured, but her relationships were her own, and her schedule wasn’t dictated by her demanding, controlling mother.

For Regina it felt like an escape and she flourished, the hope of building a new life full of people who might not be subject to her mother’s approval more heady than the strong spirits from her father’s liquor cabinet that she’d snuck the night she got her acceptance letter. What Regina discovered, however, was that the lessons of her childhood had been learned too well, engraved too deeply and while she could breathe, she wasn’t truly free. Her mother’s expectations still lingered. Regina’s own drive to be the best drove friends away in the highly competitive environment.

And then, she met Robin.

He was older, a graduate student teaching an upper-level Chinese politics class.  He had kind eyes and an easy smile. He challenged her in class and told her she was beautiful out of it. No one had ever made Regina feel as if being beautiful was something to be desired, but Robin did.  They spent three months together, days that were a cluttered whirlwind of laughter and lust that Regina could scarcely believe was real.

Until her mother found out.

The worst part was how little Cora Mills even needed to do -- Robin himself made it easy for her to find a flaw that would break her daughter’s heart. It was disgustingly pedestrian in the end, the secret he’d kept from her something one would expect to see on a horrible daytime TV show where the host wore a toupee and chairs were thrown.  He was married -- his wife was in New York while he finished his PhD, expecting their first child.

It wasn’t the first time Cora had interfered with her relationships, and it wouldn’t be the last, but what cut Regina so deeply was her own failure. She had been foolish, had wanted to believe so badly and she’d been blinded, seeing Robin as far more honorable than he was.  In the end, it wasn’t his betrayal or even her mother’s hand that darkened her heart, it was her anger at herself for daring to believe she could have something, someone, without paying for it. Robin taught her the cost of being weak.

Regina had learned her lessons, told herself she was done paying the price and avoided opening her heart to anyone afterward. The rare individuals she’d taken to bed after that had been nothing more than placeholders, warm bodies to satisfy a physical need or the kind of people who struck important political deals across pillows. She’d told herself never again, closed off her heart to the idea of ever letting someone in like that again.

She had her son, and her career.  That was enough, she’d told herself over and over again, steadfastly ignoring the hole in her heart.

It seemed, however, her heart was no longer under her control.

“Regina,” her name, whispered like a prayer or a plea against her skin and her bones turned to water. That was all it took.

Weakness, Cora had called it.  Love is weakness no one with power can afford.  That lesson had been carved into Regina’s consciousness by words cold as steel, stained onto her skin with the sharp red heat of her mother’s palm and the dull ache of fingers around her arms.  A lifetime of lessons and all it took was the way Emma trembled under her touch to discard them all. Maybe this, maybe she was weak but Regina didn’t feel weak. She felt invincible, intoxicated...safe.  Emma Swan wasn’t a fling. She wasn’t one of the ultimately forgettable bodies Regina had chosen when she could no longer stave off the loneliness or her body’s craving.  Emma wasn’t an idea or a possibility that Regina was clinging to, to escape her mother. She was solid and real and here, warm and alive and shivering beneath Regina’s fingertips.  

Somewhere between political crises and hard-won victories, between shared glasses of scotch  and too much finger food, Emma had become more than just Regina’s chief of staff. She had become mercy and hope.  She was trust, and Regina had not trusted anyone as completely in perhaps her entire life.  Emma already guarded secrets that would destroy her in far worse ways than Robin’s had and bore that burden with ease and grace.

There were soft lips and a warm tongue at her earlobe, at the corner of her jaw, long-fingered hands trailed down her sides, slipping over the silk of her dress in a caress that was far too gentle.  Emma’s voice was low and rough, unstrung and breathy and it struck a note deep in Regina, settling into the heat pooling low in her stomach. It was more than the physiological response of attraction. Regina couldn’t pull Emma close enough, couldn’t get enough of the feeling of smooth skin under her palms, the shift of muscle and bone so simple and so intoxicating, as if she had never felt another’s body move beneath her. There was a hunger in Regina’s blood that she couldn’t seem to sate with her mouth on Emma’s lips or the taste of Emma’s skin.

It was a hunger she couldn’t ever remember feeling, deeper and heavier and more urgent until she couldn’t breathe through the want, not just to touch, but be touched, not just to take, but to give in return.

She wanted, so badly, to push Emma against the bed, see her splayed out on Regina’s sheets, to explore the lines of her body with warm lips, to taste and take of her until she begged for rest.  Regina Mills was accustomed to getting what she wanted...and she wanted Emma in the worst way.

She wanted Emma in the best of ways, too.

The straps of Emma’s dress, the dress Regina had worked so hard to keep her eyes away from all night, were curled around her fingers, pulled slowly down the smooth, hard lines of Emma’s shoulders.  Behind the slide of fabric followed her lips, tracing the curve of muscle, following the hard edge of a defined collarbone, letting herself be pulled downward along the neck of the dress.

Emma’s hands slid up her sides, fingers seeking and failing to find purchase in the smooth fabric of Regina’s dress and settling instead on the back of her neck, tangling in her hair. Emma’s hold was artless and almost clumsy and the breasts below Regina’s lips, still hidden by the dress she wore, rose and fell in a ragged rhythm and Regina let let herself be urged on. The only secrets she cared about in that moment were those that would be revealed by black fabric, and the only power she cared to hold was the power to make Emma groan her name in that rough, breathy voice.

Their dresses feel to the floor, pooling in a single heap of silk as Regina nudged Emma backward until they both fell to the bed, Emma’s back to the soft covers and Regina kissing her way down her chest.  Fingers trailed down the ladder of heaving ribs, gathered at her waist, and wound around her back.

“Regina” Emma gasped and there, like the first hit of scotch on her tongue or the bells of a cathedral, her name on Emma’s breath made her shiver, made her slow down and struggle against the tightness in her chest to draw air deep into her lungs.  What she took was freely and fully given, in gasps and moans and the desperate grip against the deep blue bedspread and Regina wanted, needed to savor it.

Something fluttered in the brunette’s chest -- it wasn’t her pounding heart.

Somehow she knew, in some part of her that she had long thought crumbled to dust, what the weight of this was, a looming wave rolling toward her that had the power to crash down and wash everything away, but names have power and Regina wasn’t ready to put words to it.  Weakness she could allow herself, a night to set aside the ‘what’ of her life to be just herself, just a woman who desired, just Regina who wanted Emma. But more than that…

It meant admitting Ivanov was right, when he used Emma against her in the China room.

It meant danger and destruction and too much pain for both of them.

Regina had failed to protect Emma once tonight, she wouldn’t allow the danger of her traitorous heart to harm the woman again.

But she couldn’t stop herself from touching and Regina told herself as she pressed her lips to the racing pulsepoint below Emma’s jaw that this was enough.

Regina could taste the lie of the words even in her own mind, but if there was one skill she had learned above all others in politics, it was the ability to lie. Throwing the last shred of caution to the wind, Regina let herself take what Emma was offering and let go.

Emma was beautiful -- blonde curls, pulled up for dinner, had loosened against the linens; spun gold spllied across dark satin. Her pale skin, even in the dim light, flushed at her touch -- the pink on her cheeks spread down her neck and chest and at every place where Regina’s lips had lingered.  Emma groaned softly as fingers hooked the strap of her delicate lace underwear and slowly pulled them down, knuckles dragging across a bare thigh.  The touch was light, but close enough to savor the smoothness of the skin, to feel the gentle contour of her calf muscles.

The muscles Emma’s her belly grew taut, shifting beneath soft golden skin with each breath she took.  Regina was drawn to the hard lines of her abs, surprised but only mildly so at how toned Emma was. Red lips twisted in a delighted smirk as Emma squirmed - ticklish, Regina filed that knowledge away for later - soothing Emma’s choked protests with hands cupping the soft swell of her breasts and her lips and tongue on the sensitive skin of Emma’s chest, her hips, her belly.  And Emma, bold, wonderful Emma, reached out with one hand, the other firmly grasping the bedspread still, and took hold of Regina’s thick, dark hair, guiding her head even further still.  Knees bent, not out of an instinct to defend but opening herself to Regina’s touch.  

Pleasure, like most things in her life, was something Regina had fought for -- something to be taken and demanded, but Regina wanted this time to give, freely and openly and without any expectation for reciprocation.  Her lips lingered below Emma’s navel before moving to the inside of one thigh, dropping tender kisses to soft flesh and moving to the other side to do the same.  One arm wrapped underneath Emma’s leg and around her hips, pressing her down into the mattress, while her free hand mirrored an earlier path, the pads of Regina’s fingers just caressing skin as they traveled up her thigh.

A long shiver passed through the body beneath her -- she smiled, pressed the grin into one last open kiss high on the inside of Emma’s leg before pausing just over her, and lingering. Emma spread below her was exquisite, lean and taut, flushed and glistening. Regina caught the scent of her arousal beneath the fading note of her subtle perfume.  

She waited so long that Emma shifted below her, green eyes focusing again, uncertain, and let the question come out on a tremulous note.

“Regina?”

The woman in question looked up, lips parted and eyes darkened with words she couldn’t find the breath to utter as she gazed up Emma’s body, eyes latching onto pink lips stained with Regina’s own darker lipstick, suddenly overcome by the urge to taste them once more.

She let the instinct guide her.

Emma still tasted of vodka, of the fine wine served with a savory dinner, of something else completely foreign yet familiar.  Regina let her hands wander, across the notches at Emma’s hip, up her sides, until Emma finally pulled her lips away and begged, pleaded, for more.

“Touch me, Regina.  Please.  Please.”

No one had ever asked for such a thing.  No one had ever needed to.

She was slow at first, drawing lazy patterns around Emma’s clit, brushing the pad of her finger across the tender nub as if by accident.  For every graze, an answering hiss, until Regina captured Emma’s lips again and swallowed all the sounds just as she pressed a single finger into silken, wet heat.

Regina’s lips over Emma’s muffled the sound of a long, deep moan -- it vibrated from somewhere within her chest, and pressed as they were, skin to skin and lips to lips, Regina felt it as if she had been the one to utter it.

She set the pace, but was guided by Emma’s reactions -- gasps, twitches, the clutching of fists and the clawing of nails in her hair, up her back, into her shoulders and down her sides.  Every angle had a response, each move garnered a reaction, and when Emma came closest to the brink, Regina felt that razor’s edge in the crescent-moon divots left in her skin.

She gasped Regina’s name, desperate and breathless; she came with a broken cry, back arched and neck bowed back against the bedspread -- it was like witnessing art as it was created, a universe at the moment of making, and as Emma’s breathing slowly began to even out, all Regina wanted was to make her come again.

 

* * *

 

The clock beside the bed was turned face down (or knocked over, Regina couldn’t remember how it ended up that way) so she had no ideal how many minutes or hours had passed. Time had been measured only in the cracking of Emma’s voice or the way her body arched beneath Regina’s hands, in the pounding ache between her own legs and the movement of Emma’s fingers inside her, in the slick of skin and the high of orgasm. It was still dark outside, but Regina guessed not for too much longer when they finally quieted, naked limbs tangled in the bedspread and sheets and muscles heavy with satisfaction.  Emma’s fingers drew idle patterns against Regina’s forearm, and goosebumps marked their trails.

“I don’t expect you to protect me.”

The words were soft, but genuine, and in cooling aftermath of need, with reality waiting to rise with the sun, Regina was gratified by the fact that Emma knew how precarious their positions were now, even if she already knew it was ridiculous. Emma was hers. Her friend, her colleague, her...Regina shied away from thinking about another label. It didn’t matter. Not protecting Emma was unacceptable but those things couldn’t be said aloud.

“I know.”

“I don’t even expect you to keep me on staff.  Sleeping with the boss is kind of a no-no.”

Something stubborn and hard rose up inside Regina at those words, however. Something that felt an awful lot like pushing an angry bully off a stage and telling the president of Russia to get the hell out of her house.  Regina rolled over and leaned against her arm.  “Are you kidding?  I’m not letting you go anywhere.  Besides, I wouldn’t let that communist bastard have the satisfaction of ever thinking his actions affected anything between us.”

“But you should, Regina.  The implication is politically dangerous, but if anyone ever knew the reality...”

Emma trailed off, silenced by a soft kiss.

“You’re the only person I trust, Emma.  I want to keep you close.”

Matte red lips, still stained by lipstick and lust, curled into a wicked smile.  “Close, huh? How close, exactly?”

Regina grinned as she pulled their bodies together and kissed Emma again. 


	7. Chapter 7

Somewhere between exhausted sleep in each other’s arms and the sunrise, a reporter in Russia was told by a very reliable source that the Russian delegation had been preemptively dismissed from the White House, and that they would be heading home immediately in protest of the terrible hospitality they had received under President Mills’ roof.  The article was completed in time to make deadlines for the national news cycle, which meant that it was still very early in the morning when the White House press secretary was notified of it, and shot a text to her boss’ personal cell phone.

The phone had ended its evening on the nightstand next to the president’s bed.

It was Regina who woke to the unfamiliar buzzing, and it took a moment for her to figure out why she had been awakened.  She felt the weight of someone’s head tucked into her shoulder, their legs tangled with her own, soft puffs of breath warming a small spot on her skin.

Emma.

And...Emma’s phone, its fifth text message rattling the device across the polished wood.

“I think I need to get that,” Emma murmured against Regina’s skin. Her voice was sleep-roughed and low and it tightened something low in Regina’s belly, visceral images of last night almost making her gasp. She pushed it away though. The fate of the free world was intruding, and their time was no longer their own.

Regina sighed and reached across the bed, taking the blackberry in her fingers and placing it into a waiting palm.  The head at her shoulder shifted, a face became visible through messy hair, and Regina smiled -- she was just as beautiful in the morning as she was every other time of day.

“Well, that didn’t take long.”

“The Russians?”

“Front page in the Moscow Times.  All over the web.  Jesus, did they actually stop the presses for this one?”

“It’s been a long time since the United States threatened Russia.  They probably did.”

Emma’s hand fell to the sheet across Regina’s chest.  The president flung an arm over her eyes and groaned.

“What the hell did I get us into?”

Emma’s hand ran up Regina’s sternum, a caress meant for comfort.  “It’s not your fault.  It’s his.  And we need to figure out how you’ll respond.”

Regina checked the time readout on Emma’s phone: 4:21 was entirely too early in the morning to be plotting strategy.

“Tell Belle to draft something.”

“She needs to know what to draft, first.”

Regina sighed.  “I’m not inclined to respond at all until I either have more sleep or more coffee.”

“As comfortable as this is...my suggestion is coffee.”

She was right, of course.  Regina looked again at what could be seen of Emma’s face, and ran her hand up the woman’s back slowly, fingers tracing the curve of the spine and the edges of Emma’s shoulder blades as she finished her texts to Belle. She wanted more than this, wanted to press her palm to Emma’s back, to pull her closer, capture those lips again, wanted to feel Emma’s mouth, the wet silky heat of--

Regina’s pulse began to pick up and she forced herself to refocus on the digital messages in front of her.  A soft press of lips to her shoulder told her the wandering direction of her thoughts had been betrayed by her body, but Emma apparently had more self control than Regina because she said nothing, just rolled off the bed and started hunting for her clothes.

“Thank god I keep spare clothes in the office.”

“I could send someone to get them.  It really wouldn’t go over well if someone caught you doing the Walk of Shame across the White House.” The last message sent, Regina dropped the phone and indulged herself, watching the dim moonlight play on Emma’s pale skin, highlighting the shift of muscle and bone as she moved with careless grace. Every single inch of her now carried memories for Regina, memories of the way Emma tasted, of the sounds she made when Regina kissed or sucked or bit, memories of soft warmth beneath her fingertips and wetness around them.

Regina swallowed. Hard. Today was going to be excruciating.

Emma paused, either because she sensed the weight of Regina’s regard or because - perhaps - Regina wasn’t alone in remembering. Dress in one hand and clutched to her chest, underwear and shoes dangling from the fingers of the other, Emma still stood without any trace of shame and stared unabashedly back at Regina. The covers had been thrown aside and Regina was exposed completely to Emma’s eyes. She had no urge to reach for the sheet to cover herself. Instead all she wanted to do was reach for Emma and say ‘to hell with Russia.’

“Yeah...that sounds like a good idea,” Emma said finally and the rasp of her voice, the way she licked her lips -

Something flickered in Regina’s chest at the hint she wasn’t alone in this.

In the end though, it didn’t matter. They had responsibilities that couldn’t wait, that demanded they set aside who they were as people, as women, and become titles once more.

Regina smiled wearily, and made a call.

 

* * *

 

Two hours later, they were seated on the couches in Regina’s bedroom, a near-empty pot of coffee between them as they both read over the mix of articles coming off the wires.  The American press has already started to chime in -- it was an affront, and how could a leader be so rude to visiting dignitaries?

None of them knew the full circumstances...and the pair of women had spent most of the last two hours arguing over how to present them.

Regina was inclined to call Ivanov out for what he had done, and tell the American people just how unreasonable his demands had been.  Emma, on the other hand, was advocating for a less direct approach -- something more along the lines of “they concluded their business early, but the very spirited President of the Russian Federation had left on a misunderstanding....”

It was a role reversal -- Regina usually shied away from gender-based confrontation in politics, and Emma usually encouraged her to take a harder line with the truth.

The morning press conference loomed:  they still hadn’t managed to settle the difference, but Regina knew Emma was right -- the correct move was to turn the incident into something that was misconstrued by the Russian press, place the blame on them and put them on the defensive. It would play well domestically too, US audiences love to think ill of the Russians.

One thing they both agreed on:  it would look best for Regina to discuss it herself -- to make it clear at least to the Russian populace and the international press that no offense was intended.

Despite the PR crisis, the morning had been...nice. Having Emma to wake up to, listening to her debate herself in the shower...these were the normal things he never thought she’d have. Never even particularly thought she’d want. She’d never been one to cuddle in bed, even with Robin, she’d always been the one to leave; a paper or studying driving her out of bed with little regret. The morning with Emma had been shockingly easy and domestic in a way Regina had never considered possible in her career, and yet Emma’s presence warmed her in a way she had never experienced, and she found herself protective of Emma as she would be protective only of Henry.

Maybe that was dangerous -- she might never have expected to find such comfort in the presence of another person, but the truth was it was safer that way.  Close relationships were a liability she never wanted, and as the president they could be downright deadly.  Already, the mere appearance of their close friendship had sparked an international incident -- there was no way they could publicly date.  Regina watched Emma as she tucked a strand of golden hair behind her ear, as her tongue darted out over pink lips pulled down in concentration, and her desire to fight against the pull between them melted away.  Emma was important to her, and had been long before last night.  Now, Regina noticed how she responded to the little things she had studiously ignored before.

Emma was precious to her, and Regina had so few people in her life that meant anything at all.  They would have to be careful but maybe...maybe they could make it work.  She refused to be careless with whatever was between them.

If Emma was aware of her regard this time, though, she gave no indication and Regina sighed inwardly,  forcing her attention back to the task at hand.

 

* * *

 

The walk to the west wing wasn’t a long one, and no one raised an eyebrow at the Chief of Staff’s presence by her side exiting the residence -- it wasn’t uncommon for Emma to arrive early, and for her to start briefing the president on developments before coffee was even poured.

Belle was on the dais addressing the assembled press before she arrived, handling the barrage of introductory questions with the practiced ease of a professional.  No, the Russian Federation did not leave without answers to their own concerns.  Yes, they left prematurely, but only because business was concluded.  No, that’s not code for something.

Emma moved to stand in front of her and blocked the room from view as she gave her boss one final check-over before she walked in front of a camera.  Her approval came in the form of a soft smile, not a typical go-ahead, but close enough.

Regina nodded, and the members of the press stood as she entered.

She had walked up to the podium many times before, but this felt different.  Perhaps it was because, for a change, she was walking up there to defend someone other than herself, and she couldn’t recall the last time she had done that.

Except to say, the decision to enter public speaking at all was never her own to make.  she joined her high school debate team as a freshman.  As a sophomore, she was the captain.

She would credit, years later, that experience for training her how to use words to influence, and how to think through a point to be made quickly and spontaneously and with a high degree of success.  She would credit law school mock trials from years later with helping her learn how to read an opponent and hit them hard with what they believed was their most vulnerable argument.

But, what she left out of those interviews was that as good as she was at persuading an audience to see her point, or persuading a single foreign dignitary to do what she needed them to do, she was never as skilled or as cruel a manipulator as her mother.

Which is why, at fifteen, she was the captain of a debate squad she wanted nothing to do with.

Her interest had always been with her riding stable, with her horse Rocinante and the freedom she felt riding through hills on his back.  The lessons she took were a refuge, something her father managed to arrange without involving her mother, and though Cora was furious with him when she found out, he managed to convince her not to stop them.

Regina loved to ride, and she was extremely good at it.

But Cora didn’t aspire to create of her daughter a professional equestrian.  She wanted a president one day.

So she used Rocinante as leverage -- join the debate club, participate in extracurriculars, or the horse would be gone.

Regina learned the hard way that gaining enough leverage to break someone’s back usually meant appearing magnanimous for a very, very long time.

She was pushed to do more and more, leaving no time for anything Cora didn’t approve of.  She saw Rocinante less and less, and by her senior year she had no time in her schedule for riding.

In tears, she begged her father to sell him, to find someone that would be able to spend time with him and love him as much as she did.  He resisted, a doting but trapped father desperate to keep what happiness he could in his little girl’s life, but he eventually did as she asked.

She poured herself into school and activities and getting into Harvard, like her mother wanted, because it was her only hope to be free of Cora, eventually.

“President Mills, can you comment on the statement that was made in the Moscow Times this morning.”

She smiled as she answered, practiced, polished, perfect, the smile she had learned from her mother. It didn’t matter what she felt inside, that a part of her wanted to be back in bed with Emma beneath her, that thinking of Invanov still made her stomach twist with rage and her skin heat. When she stood at that podium in front of the cameras relaying her image and her words to the entire world, she was poised, calm, untroubled, a commanding presence in completely control of the room. She wasn’t even a person, not really, only the sum total of her actions held together and judged by her title. Such was the nature of her position.

It had been a long time since Regina had hated it this much.

“President Ivanov and I had a brief but amicable conversation about a matter before the UN.  The Russian papers are reporting that nothing was discussed, and that’s simply not true.  Our agenda was to broker better relations between our countries.”

“With all due respect, Madame President, it doesn’t appear that you’ve succeeded.”

She tilted her head to the side and considered her words, prepped and rehearsed as they were, but still only a template for any argument she made. One of the few strengths Regina possessed that had not been a direct result of her mother’s training was the ability to come across as truly genuine, to speak to a disembodied audience as if they were sitting right there with her. She had never scored well in those ridiculous polls that wanted to know ‘would you want to have a drink with this president’ and there had been plenty of adjectives like ‘cold’ and ‘bitchy’ when she ran for the presidency the first time, but not even her detractors could deny her strength as a speaker. She drew on that now to present the tone, the impression she wanted people to walk away with. After all in politics, the truth never mattered as much as the perception.

“The Russians haven’t been to the White House in over a decade, and in that time our relationship with them has politically deteriorated.  You can’t overcome ten years of deterioration in a single visit, let alone a single evening, Tom.  This was just a first step. The first of many, we hope.”

“Then what about the reported outburst at the end of the evening?”

“President Ivanov has a reputation for being a very spirited man.  He requested something he believed was in the best interest of his people, and I could not grant his request. This is just how politics on this scale works. As leaders, we have to do what’s best for our people, and sometimes, that means ending up on opposite sides of the table.  I am certain, however, we can come to some future arrangement.”

The reporter sat down, and a dozen new hands flew up.  She looked across the room and carefully considered who she might rely on to ask about the elephant in the room, and who she might have no qualms taking down a few pegs if necessary.  She spotted a familiar face in the front row, one that had never met her with anything less than scorn and disdain even before she took office.  

She pointed to him, and resisted narrowing her eyes.

“Yes, Sidney.”

For his part, the man seemed shocked that the president had actually decided to address his presence at all, but that lasted only a moment.  He was ready with his question.  “Can you comment on the nature of his request?”

She paused, just briefly, recalling the look in the Russian bastard’s eyes as he made his ask the night before.

“We were discussing the energy resolution, and missile defense sites in Europe.”

“You’ve been working on this resolution for quite some time, and it was one of your two main campaign platforms.  Are you saying that the request he made was so unreasonable that you couldn’t walk away with a compromise?”

Sidney Glass was a long-time presence at the White House, having been a correspondent for three presidents.  His was a tenure so long and storied that the Post would probably keep him on the bureau after his death.  He was also the type of reporter who made his career taking politicians down, the higher profile the better, and Regina was positive she was his next target.

He was protected, and a very vocal dissenting opinion in the press room, as journalistic opinions go.  And Regina loathed him -- he was as conniving as any politician she had ever met.

“Yes,” she answered.

He smiled like a man that had just trapped long-sought prey in an impossible position.

Glass was about to make a comment, one that had been hurled at her a couple dozen times from several different pundits, about the pliability of her spine.  The last two years had seen her approval ratings among men plummet, and while the media wasn’t entirely to blame, they certainly weren’t helping.  Kirill Ivanov knew this, and had gambled that her desperation to keep the presidency would override any relationship she may or may not have had with her Chief of Staff.

The one valuable thing she walked away from high school with, besides admission to Harvard, was the knowledge that leverage only worked while the other person had something to lose that was more important than the thing they would gain.

She would lose the presidency in two years without drastic action, and the energy bill wasn’t enough.  The job bill, if she could find a way to get it going again, might be.

But she didn’t stand a chance of winning at all without Emma Swan by her side.

“Sidney, let me stop you before you continue -- at this particular moment, it does no one any good to discuss the particulars of our negotiations.  They are, however, ongoing.  When President Ivanov and his cabinet members recover from their hangovers and land safely in Moscow, we’ll resume our conversations.”  She paused, then narrowed her eyes.  “But rest assured, despite whatever you may think of me, there are actually some things I am unwilling to give up for my own political gain, and some things that are too important to this country to give up.  He bluffed.  I called him on it.  We’ll ante up and try again.”

Sidney fell silent, outmaneuvered this time and visibly aware of it, and the rest of the questions were easy enough to answer.  When the president walked off the platform and out of the room, Emma smiled at her and though the expression was polite, the sparkle in her green eyes was not.

“That went well.”

“I think so.”

They walked down the hall in silence, followed only by the secret service -- the rest of the staff was wrapping up with the press.

“So you’re not willing to give some things up, huh?”

If she weren’t at work, she would have reached out and lace their fingers together.

“Some things are too important,” Regina replied softly

They smiled softly at one another, then parted ways to their respective offices.


	8. Chapter 8

Months passed.  Winter descended upon the city and storms with common names and uncommon snowfall strafed the eastern seaboard.  The gardens and south lawn were frosted over, then buried beneath inches of fresh snow, but it was warm in the residence.

Henry loved the weather and could be found most afternoons - under the protective eye of the Secret Service - playing out in the powdery white landscape. What precious moments Regina could spare she spent with him, even if she frankly detested being cold and wet.  Henry seemed truly happy in her presence and delighted filling her in on the very important events of his days. His stories were the (blessedly) simple concerns of a child but Regina always listened with the same attention she gave the most dire of briefings. Frankly, sometimes Henry made more sense than certain Congressional committee members,  and watching his face light up was infinitely more rewarding.  

Emma had been a fixture in their lives before of course, but as their relationship deepened,she spent more time - time not wholly consumed by matters of state - with Regina and Henry. Both women were careful at first, careful not to reveal too much, careful to protect Henry, but the truth was her son loved Emma with easy trust of a child who had no reason to doubt the adults in his life. And the more time Emma spent with them, the closer she and Henry grew. Regina knew that should probably have terrified her - adding her son’s heart to the potential collateral damage if this relationship fell apart - but then she watched Emma listening very seriously to Henry talking about school, or their eyes would meet over the top of Henry’s head as he tried to swear he really wasn’t tired yet and Regina knew it was too late.

It was why they agreed to tell him the truth - and the consequences. Both Regina and Emma bore deep, lasting scars carved by secretive families who chose the terrible business of politics over their own children. Tangled together in bed, Emma’s head resting on Regina’s shoulder and their fingers entwined, it was something they’d both agreed on absolutely.  They kept secrets from everyone else, not Henry.

And so the Residence became a sanctuary for the three of them, a word Regina refused to acknowledge hovering in the air, carried by Henry’s laughter as Emma tickled him and dancing on the soft sighs Regina loved pulling from Emma’s throat as they came together late at night.

There was fear of course. This world they moved in - one wrong step could destroy a career,  could tear apart a family. And what Emma and Regina were doing was much, much worse than a single step. Their jobs were both their greatest liability and best asset, as they had good reason, most of the time, to spend long hours together.  

The running of a country as large as the United States was endless, who would think it odd when the two most powerful women in the world worked late into the evening together?

Regina knew, though, that no matter how hard they tried, they were only living on borrowed time.

She clung to Emma and each second that passed and held as tightly to it as possible.

 

* * *

 

Henry’s private school had just let out for an extended winter break -- today had been their last day for the semester, and Henry had all manners of wild tales to tell about the extended recess they had been able to enjoy as a celebration.  His favorite, told while leaning over the coffee table and bouncing on the balls of his feet, with an animated face and wide grin, was the story of a snowball fight that he and Neal had gotten into with older classmates, and how quickly they managed to win.  Both women made sure to convey that they were suitably impressed (and it hadn’t been hard -- Henry’s stories were especially entertaining when he was excited about them), and Emma gave him a hearty highfive for his efforts.

Regina smiled at the exchange, at the way Emma seemed to fit so easily into Henry’s life.

There was still time before dinner, so he ran into his room to do homework.  Emma watched him go, a mysterious look on her face -- Regina, now familiar with most of her expressions, tilted her head.

“What’s on your mind?  That’s not the look you get on your face when you’re ready to discuss foreign trade.”

Instead of responding with her usual dry humor, though, Emma merely sighed and stared after Henry for a long time before answering.

“I gave a son up for adoption.”

Whatever Regina had been expecting, it wasn’t that revelation.  Stunned, she was silent for a moment, thinking quickly. She made it a habit to know everyone’s secrets before they revealed. As little as they had worked together before her Presidential campaign, Regina had her staff dig up all the dirt they could on the woman before she was ever interviewed, let alone hired. A pregnancy was nowhere to be found.

Looking back now, however, the evidence was easy to piece together.

“Cornell.  That’s why you didn’t finish,”

Emma nodded.  “I thought about aborting it, but I thought, maybe I wanted it.  Maybe I wanted to try to be the kind of parent I never had.  But my boyfriend at the time was not even close to father of the year material, and I…I wanted him to have his best chance, and that wouldn’t be with me.”  she shook her head.  “I’m not the motherly type, anyway.”

“You do well enough with Henry.”

Emma shook her head, but she was smiling, that odd, almost wistful half smile. “That’s because you raised an amazing kid.” Her voice was softer and Regina felt something warm and heavy uncurl in her chest. This was dangerously close to the word they didn’t speak; the thing they wouldn’t - couldn’t - name. Family was a dream Regina couldn’t want, not while she held this office. That trade had been made long ago.

She thought she saw the same knowledge in Emma’s eyes and both of them glanced away for a moment.

The compliment was unexpected, but welcome, and Regina focused on that. She felt as if she had nothing to do with how Henry had turned out sometimes, he had always been an easy child, with a happy disposition and a bright curiosity that had been easy for her to foster. He was, as Emma was fond of teasing them both, a little nerd, just like Regina.  Raising him had been a joy, with little exception, and though she was technically a single mother, she’d always been privileged enough to have access to the best childcare and schools when she was busy.  But the way he trusted, his gentle nature, it was so hard to believe sometimes that she’d had any hand in that.

“I got lucky,” she replied after a moment, brushing off the weight of Emma’s earlier words. She expected a quip in return, but Emma surprised with her with soft words; her eyes when Regina glanced up were steady and serious.

“That’s not luck, Regina.”

Regina reached out for Emma’s hand and squeezed and the answering smile was as much an anchor as the slim strong fingers holding her own.

“I think about him a lot.  I wonder if he had a better life with parents that deserved him and loved him.  I worry sometimes that I made a mistake.  If he’s loved.  If he was placed with a family or left in a foster home.  If he’s happy.”

“He’d be...ten?  Right?”

“Yeah.  He and Henry were born the same day, just in different states.  I would wonder, if not for that.”

Wouldn’t that be something, Regina thought, entertaining the idea - as foolish and outlandish as it was - for just a moment.  It was easy to picture, in a way, there was something bright about both of them, and Henry had picked up a fair number of Emma’s mannerisms in the last months, making it easy to let her imagination play with the idea.  And Regina could admit, if only in that small sliver of time, that the idea terrified her far less than it should have. A connection between her son and anyone would have been devastating to her once, now, now she looked at the softness in Emma’s eyes and thought about the way Emma smiled at her son and all she felt was something far too akin to that dangerous weight between them they didn’t speak of.

Instead of pushing, Regina shifted the conversation.

“Who was his father?”

Emma laughed suddenly, putting Regina a little off.  “You’re not gonna believe it, actually.”

Her curiosity was definitely piqued.  She let one of the edges of her mouth lift in amusement.  “Well now you really need to tell me.”

“Neal Gold.”

“As in….as in Senator Gold’s son?!”

“Yup,” Emma replied, her smile crooked and rueful.

Regina leaned back, more than a little shocked.  The man -- if he could be called that -- had been arrested three times in law school for possession, and twice for DUIs.  Regina remembered him as a reckless and selfish youth, spoiled rotten by his father, given everything he could ever want just to squander every last drop of it.  About eight years ago, on a suspended license and high as a kite, he’d driven his car off a moving ferry on the way to Nantucket.  His car was dragged out of the cape, but his body was never found.

She’d wanted to believe Senator Gold might actually be touched by the death of his son, but he used the tragedy to get reelected that next cycle.  By the end, she could see through his crocodile tears.

“I wouldn’t want to be related to that family, either.”

Emma laughed, but there was a dark edge to it that Regina understood all too well.

“But then I see Henry, and how well he turned out, and I think...you know, sometimes these stories do get happy endings.  Some boys get to be adopted by good people, and are actually modern-day princes.  If my son is half as loved as Henry is, he found a better family than I could ever give him.”

Regina had to swallow against the sudden lump in her throat. As a woman in politics she was so used to having to defend her decisions, her rights, her very existence as a mother. To  have someone - one of the few people whose opinion truly mattered to her - say that she was a good mother...

“We could try to find him, if you want,” Regina managed after a moment, relieved to hear her voice sounded perfectly steady.

“No.”  Emma shook her head and lifted her hand.  “No, let the boy live his life.  He can find me, when he needs to.  When he’s ready.  I made sure of it.”

Regina leaned her head into Emma’s shoulder.

“In the meantime, you’re welcome to borrow Henry whenever you want to.”

Emma’s laughter was like music -- it delighted her in ways she would never be qualified to articulate.

“Deal.”


	9. Chapter 9

Since her father’s death, Regina had done her best to completely write her mother out of her life. Cora Mills, despite being a looming, inescapable presence in Regina’s childhood, was nowhere to be found on any campaign trail, an unspoken part of her past that no one even tried to bring up.  She hadn’t even met Henry, and that was by design -- the woman had a way of sinking her manipulative hooks into young children, and while Regina struggled at times to be the parent she felt Henry deserved, the single, absolute certainty in her life was that he would never know what it felt like to be controlled and manipulated by Cora. She would spare her son that no matter what the cost.

The fact it had cost her - as yet - surprisingly little was something Regina tried not to let consume her. To say that it was surprising Cora complied with the demand that she stay out of their lives would have been a gross understatement, but as years passed and the woman did indeed stay far away from Regina and her son, the President allowed that perhaps it was because her mother finally had what she’d always wanted -- her daughter in the most powerful position in the world.

Still, in her darker moments, Regina knew on some barely acknowledged level that her conclusion was nothing more than false hope -- she had never been able to understand her mother’s motivations, but she knew this. Cora Mills was never, ever content, and her mother always got what she wanted.

When the shoe finally dropped - or in this case the call came through to the President’s secretary, asking that ‘her daughter return her call’ - that part of Regina was not surprised at all, only deeply, wearily resigned.

“Is your mother really that bad?” Emma asked.  Regina looked up from the note on her desk, eyebrow raised.

“You have no idea,” she sighed, using a line Emma herself had uttered some months ago in reference to her own dysfunctional kin.  Even without the full context of the relationship between them, she imagined they would find in their experiences littered with similar flavors of pain.

“So, what do you think she wants?”

Regina shook her head.  “Whatever it is, it won’t be good for us.”

‘Not good’ turned out to be an understatement. Cora wanted to join them for Christmas at Camp David. Regina would have rather hosted Israel and Iran. At the same time.

Much as she would have done with a sensitive international peace talk, Regina compromised, offering her mother a few days before Christmas with a Christmas Eve departure -- she wouldn’t have Henry’s holiday spoiled, and wanted a few days of peace.

Emma, ever mindful of their precarious positions, offered to join them after Cora left.  Regina refused.  “Whatever else you are, you are my friend, and you would not be the first Chief of Staff to spend Christmas with the president.”

Emma’s response was a snort and sarcasm.  “Yeah, but I doubt Ford was sleeping with Dick Cheney.”

“I’ve met them both,” Regina replied dryly.  “You never know.”

The three of them arrived at the compound on the morning of the 21st, and the dense forest that surrounded the country house was blanketed in fresh white snow.  Through the thick windows of their car, in relative quiet, they could hear little but the slight hum of the engine and the faintest whir of wind outside, so the serene and still scenery seemed more a picture--a still-life of a traditional American Christmas.

It was a beautiful drive.

The interior of the house was decorated before they arrived -- the mantle held a douglas fir swag laced with berries and tiny silver lights, the tree stood 15 feet and was draped with shining baubles.  Beneath the tree, all the presents she would need for the Henry and Emma, plus one small box for her mother.  Ordinarily, she and Henry would be content to decorate on their own after they arrived, but as president she no longer had time for such things.  The caretakers of Camp David did an excellent job preparing the house for presidents -- she had no complaints at all.  Besides, they had other things to prepare for this year.

Cora arrived the next day, just after noon.

Regina had her picked up in an official car, deciding that giving her the absolute closest thing to the royal treatment that exists in the United States might stave off some of the more obvious quips and complaints.  Maybe.  So when the car arrived in the circle drive, she, Emma, and Henry stood outside in front of the door, and greeted Cora Mills as if receiving a foreign dignitary.

The comparison was apt. Cora emerged from the car - letting the driver open the door and  hand her out - like a queen. Her perfectly tailored outfit in shades of black and grey wool with ruby earrings was probably more expensive than most heads of state could actually afford, and she looked at the world as if, as she stood before the Aspen Lodge for the first time, she was surveying her territory, and judging it.

So when the first thing Cora did upon seeing Regina, Emma and Henry assembled outside the door waiting for her was smile it threw Regina almost as badly off balance as she’d been the night the Russian President demanded to sleep with her Chief of Staff.

“Oh, my darling daughter!” Cora said, embracing Regina as if they never had a falling out.  Regina returned it awkwardly, arms wooden as she struggled with the unfamiliar gesture, glancing at Emma standing on the other side of her son.

Cora pulled away and looked to the boy, leaned down to his level and smiled at him.  “And you must be Henry.  I’ve been eager to meet you.”

He smiled, but there was a sharpness in his eyes, a false brightness in his grin. It was a look Regina knew all too well, so similar to the one she wore herself when she needed people to underestimate her, and she almost blew the entire moment by laughing. Her son was absolutely and completely her son.  He’d been warned that no matter what Cora asked, he should say only that Emma and Regina spent a lot of time working together and were good friends.  Blessedly, Henry hadn’t questioned why. Regina had told him very little of Cora growing up, only that he had a grandmother and they were not close so he seemed to take it in stride that Cora wasn’t necessarily to be trusted. More than in stride if the way he held out his hand, smiling brightly, was any indication.   In another life, Regina would have felt guilty about that. Children should love their grandparents.

But the cost of that love was too high. She wouldn’t pay it and neither would Henry.

“Should I call you Granny?” he asked, apparently utterly innocent.  

Regina had to bite the inside of her cheek, hard, to keep from smiling. Cora looked positively appalled at the suggestion -- Regina made a note to slide Henry extra dessert.  Beside her, Emma shifted ever so slightly, the only tell that she was probably covering up her own internal laughter. There was no time to savor Cora’s shock, though. Recovering quickly, the older woman rose back to her full height and tightened her grin to a thin line.  “Cora will be fine,” she replied.

Then her eyes settled on Emma.  Regina, selfishly, hadn’t wanted to deal with her mother alone, and she knew that she had a better chance of sussing out Cora’s intentions with Emma by her side.  Her mother looked the blonde up and down for just a moment before smiling sweetly.

For a moment, Regina thought she might be nice.

She was mistaken.

“Dear, if you don’t mind, I’ll take some coffee.”

Emma - used to dealing with Senators, Congressmen and Russian presidents - didn’t blink, although Regina saw a twitch of her eyebrow, visible only to someone who was looking for it, that said Cora had scored a hit.  Less than two minutes. Even for Cora that was some kind of record and it took Regina a moment longer--perhaps because of who Cora was addressing more than anything--to respond.

“Mother, Emma isn’t a servant.  She’s my chief of staff.”

“Oh.”  She looked appropriately ashamed just long enough to follow up with, “well what’s she doing here?  Shouldn’t she be with her own family during the holidays?”

“Emma doesn’t really have any blood relatives to speak of, so I invited her to spend Christmas with us.”

“Ah." And there was the patented Cora Mills sneer. Regina resisted the urge to sigh, especially since her mother clearly wasn’t finished. Cora glanced around, noting the secret service agents standing in their black suits and sunglasses.  "Well, where is the help?”

Regina raised an eyebrow.  “On vacation.  We’re capable of making our own coffee, and cooking our own food, and cleaning up after ourselves like normal people.  It's essential support staff only this weekend, mostly for the secret service, not for us."

“I wasn’t aware your aspiration was ever to be normal.”

Regina bit back a retort about never having a choice and resigned herself to a very, very long couple of days.

They moved to the kitchen -- Regina directed the driver where to put Cora’s bags and the man hurried faster than was strictly necessary. In minutes they were alone.  Cora found the coffee and poured herself a cup for perhaps the first time in Regina’s life, and Emma and Henry sat down on the barstools on the island.  An array of mixing bowls and ingredients were lined up in orderly rows, ready to be mixed and made into whatever they collectively magicked up.

Baking was Regina’s refuge, one that she hid as the leader of the free world, but shared openly with the precious few people that were close to her.  When some pressing issue or delicate situation kept her up, she would often walk into the generous kitchen in the residence and make a pie or a set of tarts, completely from scratch and completely without recipes.  Henry would sometimes join her if it was early enough, and it was not uncommon lately to find the three of them at the table in the kitchen, well after Henry should be in bed, Emma and Regina working out a policy problem as Henry sat and read a book.

That’s how they passed the rest of the afternoon -- Regina baked and cooked, dodging whatever barbs her mother had prepared for her.  Emma helped, hands free and of remarkably little interest to their guest.

It should have come as a relief - her mother’s apparent disinterest in the woman Regina was quite literally in bed with should have been a holiday miracle but Cora’s interest was almost entirely focused on Henry, and that was terrifying.

Regina -- and she caught Emma doing the same -- kept a sharp eye on the older woman, but Cora behaved herself around him.  She was friendly with him in a way Regina couldn't ever recall seeing her mother around any child, certainly she’d never acted that way toward Regina herself.  Cora asked him what he was interested in, paid attention when he excitedly explained everything about the plot of this storybook he was reading, and even contributed some interesting history to give the tales context.  As the evening wore on, Regina frequently stole glances at Emma, whose sharp mind was almost entirely focused on whatever Cora was saying to Henry -- but the blonde woman just shrugged or shook her head when Cora couldn’t see.

Whatever Cora Mills’ intention, the chief of staff couldn’t discern it either.

For all intents and purposes, she appeared the doting grandmother.  Neither woman was able to uncover any further motivations that evening, or through the next day of her visit.   

The next evening, after Regina had managed to bake enough pies, tarts, cookies, and cakes to give one to every single one of her staff members after the holiday break, they sat by the tree to exchange gifts.  Regina’s gift to her mother was simple -- a set of earrings, sapphire and diamond, the blue just the right shade to match her mother’s favorite color.  The color touch was about as personal as she cared to get with the gift, and she didn’t miss the interesting frown that crossed her mother’s face as she took her first glance at it.  Regina’s gift in return was a silk scarf, picked up mostly likely on a recent trip to Europe.

Henry received a watch (from Cora), a video game (Emma’s contribution, after a lengthy discussion of age-appropriate games of course), and a book of fairy tales from Regina -- the same one that Henry Mills, Senior read to Regina when she was a child.

It was the only thing she had wanted to keep after her father died -- she was thrilled Henry would have it and wanted so very much to share it with him, maybe even read it together like her father had read to her.

“Your mother loved these stories when she was younger,” Cora told him, holding out a hand for the book in such a way that not even a ten year old would refuse. Henry glanced toward Regina once though before handing it over smoothly, watching carefully as Cora flipped through the worn yellow pages delicately. Her touch was careful but seeing those hands, that had been the cause of so many of Regina’s worst memories, touching that book...  “I bet you’ll love them, too.”  Hidden from her mother, Regina’s other hand tightened into a fist, hard enough that her  short nails pushed crescents of pain into her palm. She had loved those stories, but they had been something she and her father shared, away from her mother, how dare Cora try to infringe upon them now --

A soft touch at her elbow, just the brush of fingertips but Regina glanced up, caught green eyes full of understanding, of empathy, and let her hand uncurl. Near the tree, Henry and  Cora were still talking -- the moment went unnoticed. Regina tried to give Emma a grateful smile but she had a feeling she probably just looked pathetic.

Henry thanked her, and Cora’s eyes met Regina’s after the boy got up and wandered to the sofa with his new treasures.

Regina thanked her, as well, though her throat felt like sandpaper and her tongue stuck  to the roof of her mouth.

It’s almost over, she told herself silently. It’s almost over. Risking another glance at Emma, Regina saw the same mantra in the other woman’s expression. Somehow, just knowing she wasn’t alone helped. A little bit.

In the end it was a tense but cordial visit, and Cora left without complaint at noon on Christmas Eve, leaving the two women behind with no idea why she had actually come in the first place.  They watched her car depart from the same places they greeted her.

“I don’t trust her,” Emma finally said as Cora's car pulled out of view.

Regina sighed.  'That's what I was afraid you'd say."

 

* * *

 

Regina didn’t have many fond childhood memories, but those few she had held onto were of Christmas.  The holiday itself was grueling, filled with grown-ups she didn’t know, even harsher expectations from her mother and very little joy. As a young girl Regina had never understood how so many children seemed to love spending time with their parents, or how they really ever brought themselves to care about gifts that would inevitably get taken away or destroyed. Understanding -- and perspective -- came later, but it wasn’t until she adopted Henry that Regina began to truly look forward to Christmas. It was one of the things she promised to him, silently, while he slept in his crib, utterly unaware of just how terrified the woman holding his tiny little hand was. Her son, her son would never have a reason to fear a holiday.

Still, even Regina had a few good memories, treasured and tucked away safely. They were mostly small ones -- moments stolen with her father, a snowball fight with cousins who were allowed such things, and one tradition between father and daughter. Every Christmas Eve night after Cora had gone to bed, Henry Sr. would sneak into Regina’s room and wake her up, a small wrapped gift in his hand.  It was never large enough to be noticed, nor shiny enough to be seen, and was always more of a gesture, or a promise, than anything tangible.

It didn’t matter. She always loved it.  She loved the time with her father away from the cruel jealousy of her mother.

After she adopted Henry, she promised to make Christmas special, but she also promised to keep the tradition her father had started.

She put the scotch tape aside and inspected the gift -- somewhat larger than the tiny boxes that held the promise riding lessons or hugs when she needed them or a week at camp during the summer, and a few sweets she could squirrel away somewhere for later.  Emma watched as she wrapped the box, a soft smile on her face.

“What?”

“I think it’s sweet, this tradition.  What your dad used to do, and how you’re carrying that on with Henry.” Emma’s voice was soft, and she smiled, but there was something in the way that smile stretched farther to the right than the left, something in her eyes that looked a lot like pain.

It was easy to forget, though she was such a new fixture in their lives, that Emma had no traditions of her own.  Christmases for her as a kid had been split between two homes that didn’t want her  -- when she got old enough to make the decision, she simply stopped going to either home during the holidays, and none of her family members seemed to care.

Putting down the present, Regina stepped close, reaching up to cup Emma’s face in her palms. “We’ll make some memories for you, Emma.  Something better than the last few days with my mother.” She said it lightly, but she could feel the soft, swift intake of breath Emma made. They didn’t make promises or talk about tomorrow. Their relationship was unlabeled and largely unacknowledged. What Regina did now, this was dangerous, it was inviting the possibility of more, of hope.  It was foolish really, but Emma’s  eyes were so startlingly green and when she slid her arms around Regina’s waist and pulled her close, their bodies fit together like they were made for each other.  Like coming home.  It was Emma who bent her head, pressing her lips to Regina’s soft and sweet and careful, but when Regina’s fingers tangled in thick blonde hair, careful became deep, became warm and wet, became teeth nipping at a full lower lip and hands gripping her ass.

When the pulled apart they were both breathing raggedly but Emma held her close, resting their foreheads together.

“It was worth it,” she said, voice barely reaching Regina’s ears even this close. Looking up she met Emma’s gaze, serious and steady and so heartbreakingly raw for just a moment...then those walls came back up and she smiled, wickedly, her eyes crinkling at the corners.

“Besides, it wasn’t all bad.  You two were still here.”  The devilish grin widened.  “And your pie is pretty damn worth it.”

Regina laughed, but rolled her eyes at the terrible double entendre.  “Later, dear.  Now that my mother is gone, there’s nothing to stop you from tasting my forbidden fruit all you wish.”

“Ew.”  Emma wrinkled her nose and quirked her lips to the side.  “When you put it that way…”

They laughed and let go of each other, the atmosphere easing, but Emma’s hands lingered on her hips and Regina pressed one last kiss to the corner of her mouth. Nothing had changed, not really, but something had shifted and when Regina pulled away, the ground  felt just a little more solid beneath her feet.

“Go.  Do your thing,” Emma smiled. “I’m going to go get ready for bed.”  

Henry was still awake, of course -- as any kid should be on Christmas Eve.  Under the tree there was an array of gifts for when he woke up the next morning (Regina  spoiled him, she knew it and didn’t care).

But he, like his mother, treasured these moments most, and he gleefully took the present from his mother’s hands when offered.

“I don’t know if you’ll like this one,” she hedged.  “And if you don’t, we’ll find something else for you to do.  But this was my refuge when I was young, and though I’m starting you late, I’ve finally found a place I trust to train you the right way.”

Henry’s mouth quirked in a funny imitation of Emma’s and for a moment Regina was struck by the resemblance between the two people she lo- between her son and her chief of staff. Then small hands tore into the paper and opened the box, and she forgot. Henry quickly (but carefully) sorted through the mess of hard candies and tissue paper - though he snagged one of the two snickerdoodles that Regina had thrown in, since they were his favorite - until his fingers caught on a loop of leather, and he pulled it free of the rest of the goodies to look at it in the lamplight.

“Is this a belt?” he asked, brows pulled down in a considering frown.

“No,” Regina replied carefully.  “It’s a horse bridle.”

For a few more heartstopping seconds his expression was blank with confusion before he finally connecting the dots and he beamed, his entire face lighting up like the sun.  “Wait!  Am I getting a horse?”

Regina laughed, reaching out to brush his hair off his forehead.  “Not yet.  You have to learn how to take care of one and handle one first.  We’ll discuss getting you a horse.”

He smiled wide as he inspected the shapeless leather contraption in his hands, then looked back up at his mother.

“Will you come with me?  I know you’re busy, but I know you used to ride.  Can we do that together?  Will you help teach me?”

Regina stilled for a moment, taken aback by the unexpected emotions evoked by the request.  She had loved riding, she hadn’t overstated when she told Henry it was her refuge, but she hadn’t ridden since college.  “I don’t know if I remember enough to be of any help,” she said.

“You remember everything,” he replied.  “I’m sure you do.” And oh the simple faith, the complete and utter trust in the way he looked at her. It hit her like a fist between her ribs, punching in and pushing all the air from her lungs until there was nothing but emotion. She wondered not for the first time if her father had felt something like this, on the Christmas Eves they spent together, when Regina opened her gifts and felt real joy.

She swallowed once, twice, trying to remind her throat to work, her lungs to expand. “If that’s what you want, I’ll try.  We’ll make it work.”

“Awesome!”  He embraced her, hard, and she hugged him right back, and they stayed like that for a long time, Henry already running through the list of potential names for his possible future horse.  When she finally tucked him back in and kissed him on the forehead, she was smiling -- really, truly smiling. This tradition had always been the best part of Christmas.  

She was still smiling when she walked through the double doors of the master suite.  Beyond the large windows at the back of the room, in the dimmest of moonlight, she could see fresh snow continue to fall.

To the right, next to the bed, one of the lamps glowed softly.

It was obvious that Emma had been planning something flirtatious -- there were unlit candles on the dresser and a fresh bouquet of roses on the table and there was one of those pre-made ribbon bows in her hand but Emma was merely sitting on the bed, her silk robe still tied around her waist when Regina walked in.  

“I was going to make a cheesy joke about unwrapping presents,” she said, staring down at the red ribbon, twisting it around her fingers. “Even got the red teddy and all,” and oh that image made something hot and harsh surge up Regina’s spine.

The ribbon landed on the floor and Emma was suddenly very close. In a mirror of earlier, it was Emma’s hands that cupped her face now and Regina slipped her arms around the taller woman’s waist, her lungs suddenly starved for air as they pressed together.

“Emma?” Because this felt dangerous, it felt like promises and tomorrow and something real.

“Just for tonight, for this trip,” Emma whispered, pressing the lightest of kisses to the scar on her upper lip.

This was a terrible idea. Regina knew better than anyone there was no going back, no ‘getting it out of your system’ no ‘just for one night.’ But Emma was warm and strong and steady against her, soft curves and slightly unsteady breathing and Regina wanted what she offered.

She didn’t have the strength to answer, but she didn’t have the strength to say ‘no’ either, and when she leaned back, reaching between them to slowly, slowly pull the silk sash of Emma’s robe open, the other woman’s smile was full.

“This is the best present,” she whispered against the skin of Emma’s collarbone,  and Emma just laughed and pulled her closer.

“Merry Christmas, Regina.” 


	10. Chapter 10

Sleeping in was a luxury Regina had not been able to afford in years, so even without an alarm, dark eyes opened not long after the sky beyond the windows bled from pewter to pale grey. The lodge was hushed and silent in the way of places surrounded by heavy snow, and through a gap in the curtains, Regina could see giant flakes drifting lazily downward. It was the kind of morning tailor made for lazing in bed and for once, Regina didn’t shift immediately into full alertness, mind racing through all the things she would need to tackle that day.

Instead, she allowed herself the sheer, visceral pleasure of lingering between sleep and consciousness tucked beneath the covers, cocooned by down and the heat of Emma’s body, because this, too, was a rare treasure. As much time as they spent together and as often as they managed more intimate encounters, Emma almost never slept over, and they never slept in the same bed if she did. It was the sobering reminder of just how precarious their positions were when every night (or very early morning) they found time together inevitably ended with Emma picking up her clothes, getting dressed and departing to sleep alone in another bed, leaving Regina finding it harder and harder not to resent the way the sheets cooled in her absence.

They weren’t at the residence, however, and Regina woke with the weight of Emma’s body pressing her down into the welcoming mattress. Emma clung in her sleep. The very few times they’d been too exhausted to immediately part had taught Regina that, but it was still surprising to Regina that such a self-possessed woman would inevitably attach herself to Regina’s side like a limpet in sleep. Messy blonde hair was spilling over Regina’s chest and Emma had an arm wrapped around Regina’s waist, the top of her head tucked under Regina’s chin. It should have felt confining, this closeness. Regina knew from her few past relationships - well, dalliances - that she had a hard time adjusting to sharing a bed. Sex and cuddling were one thing, but sleeping? She’d loved the feeling of Robin’s arms around her until it was time to drift off and then she’d inevitably pushed him away. He’d accepted it in good humor (or perhaps, now that she looked back, guilt) but with Emma she had no desire to distance herself.

Without her realizing, Regina’s fingers started tracing meaningless patterns on Emma’s shoulder blade, unaware of her actions until a sleepy noise startled her. Instead of waking though, Emma just wriggled a little closer.  It was incredibly endearing, and the swift rush of tenderness made Regina’s heart beat harder against her ribs, her arms tightening briefly to bring Emma even closer against her.

It was a lie. A fantasy as fragile and childish as a jolly man in a red suite with a sleigh. The only uncertainty about their...relationship, was whether it would end messily in public, or if they would be able to break it off quietly before it became a political scandal.  Regina had long since stopped believing in happy endings.

And yet.

It was Christmas day. There was snow on the ground and presents under the tree. Her son would be up soon, demanding those presents be opened and right now, she was in bed, with nowhere else to be, with Emma Swan in her arms and a faint ache in her thighs reminding her of the several exquisite orgasms that Emma had given her ‘for Christmas’.

It was foolish, and weak, and so very dangerous but in that moment, with the soft silence still blanketing the house and Emma’s breath warm on her neck, that Regina closed her eyes and gave herself one single gift. She let herself pretend, just for this stay. For forty eight hours she would not be the President of the United States who was fucking her chief of staff in the most politically disastrous decision of her career, she would just be Regina, the mother who loved her son, and the woman who could no longer imagine not having Emma in her life.

Tilting her head, Regina pressed a soft kiss to the top of a mussed blonde head, closed her eyes, and let herself drift back to sleep.

 

* * *

 

The next time she woke, it was to Henry bursting into the bedroom -- something he usually didn't do -- and bouncing into bed with the two of them just to wake them up.  He had never actually seen them sleeping together, but he didn't seem to think anything odd of it (or he just didn’t care because he was ten and it was Christmas morning and presents ) and because it was Christmas, Regina let herself imagine a future where Henry had two mothers. One of whom was groaning and then pulling Henry to her to tickle him until he shrieked loud enough to make Regina wince.

“Alright, alright, go wait by the tree  We’re awake darling,” she finally said. Henry was off the bed almost before she finished speaking and Regina fell back with a groan. Emma seemed to take that as a signal to pull her close again, mumbling something about going back to sleep.

“Emma,”

“Hmmm, don’t wanna.”

She sounded five. Regina bit her lip to stop herself from smiling, then bit it for another reason.

“Emma,” she whispered, easing the other woman onto her back.

“Hmm.” Eyes still tightly closed in protest, Emma nonetheless happily pulled Regina on top of her, melting into the slow, soft kiss Regina pressed to her lips.

“Emma,” Regina ran her tongue along Emma’s upper lip.

“We.”  Shifting so she could move, she slipped her hand under Emma’s shirt, palm sliding slowly upward to cup the swell of a breast.

“Need.”  Her thumb swept gentle arcs across the curve of sensitive flesh, and Emma whined, arching into the contact, unable to really move because of Regina’s weight.

“To get.”  Another kiss, this one slow and thick and dirty, heat and tongues and possession until Emma was gasping, green eyes wide and dark, legs falling open instinctively.

“Up.”  Regina carefully pinched the hardened nipple beneath her hand, pulling a rough, broken groan from deep in Emma’s chest.

“You are so not fair,” Emma growled, now fully awake. With another of those liquid, shockingly fast moves, she shifted and suddenly it was Regina on her back, pressed into the bed, Emma’s weight on top of her, a lean thigh between her own legs, pressing into her sex. Even through layers of cotton it felt too good, made her want, heat and pressure and delicious coiling tension that promised a release that was much, much too distant.

“Mom! Emma!”  The yell came thankfully from the living room but it made both woman groan, Emma’s head dropping to Regina’s chest.

“Merry Christmas,” Regina chuckled softly, hands lightly running up and down Emma’s spine. She wasn’t expecting Emma to look up, but she did, and there was something soft and raw in her eyes as she smiled a rare and unfettered smile.

“Yeah. It is.”

 

* * *

 

Henry was practically vibrating by the time Emma and Regina found their slippers and pulled on robes over their pajamas to drag themselves out to the coffee pot.  They had barely settled on the sofa -- close but not touching -- before he was already dragging one of his presents out, shaking it and trying to guess what was inside.

It was easy. Easier than Regina had ever imagined, sitting there, in front of the massive tree, watching her son open his presents. Whenever she glanced at the woman sitting next to her, Emma was smiling, the crinkle at the corners of her eyes and the way they sparkled telling Regina it was real. And when Regina reached out, Emma took her hand, holding it in place against her thigh as if it were normal, as if it was something they were always allowed and not a rare indulgence.

Her mother had made fun of normal, but there was an ache below her breastbone, a tightness in her throat. At the end of the day it was moments like this that Regina craved. She had never asked Emma what the other woman wanted. When they spoke about the future it always inevitably in the context of the next crisis. The next bill. The next election cycle. But Emma sometimes glanced her way, something raw but unreadable flickering across her face, the fingers in her own tightening briefly when Henry did something particularly adorable and for the first time, Regina wondered.

Maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t alone in what she wanted…

Forcing her concentration back to where Henry was opening a new scarf, however, Regina put those thoughts aside. She had given herself two days to pretend and that was dangerous enough. Thinking about the future was only inviting disaster she couldn’t afford, and might not survive, so she smiled at her son, and hugged him close when all the presents lay in the brightly colored wreckage of Christmas morning and shared a soft, sweet kiss with Emma before they all moved into the kitchen to start breakfast and tried to ignore the silent clock in her mind, minutes slipping through her fingers no matter how tightly she held.

When they left to return to D.C., it felt too much like an ending.

 

* * *

 

For six whole days, the world behaved itself.  No major issues presented themselves, and the President of the United States was only required to do do a few hours of work a day, able to spend some cherished time with her son. Her staff worked more, but even for them the holidays were a lighter time.

It was early on the morning of the 2nd day of the new year, just as Emma walked into the Oval Office with two mugs of coffee, that the lull was shattered-- a Russian task force on a UN assignment to a peacekeeping mission in the Jordan Valley was caught in an explosion near the West Bank, and the Russians refused to allow anyone -- Israeli, Pakistani, or any other nationality -- near the site.

Palestine and Israel were both -- to put it crudely and mildly -- pissed.

“This is the first time in decades they’ve agreed on something,” Emma muttered darkly, clutching her coffee mug to her chest in an attempt to wake up as the reports came in, scattered and sometimes contradictory.

Regina smiled around her own warm mug, but it was wan.  Emma wasn’t wrong but the situation had far too much potential to spiral out of control. It left a very interesting conundrum in the Middle East, one they would need to meet with the Secretary of State to discuss later that morning, so coffee was consumed.

Later, much later, Regina would wish she had never left Camp David.

The peacekeeping mission in the Jordan valley wasn’t a new one, but given escalation in violence that culminated in some very public, costly tragedies, it was one that the United Nations was interested in helping to scale back.  The Russians had, the year before, offered troops for the effort.  Everyone in the Mills administration had raised a silent eyebrow at Russia’s complicity, especially after President Ivanov’s disastrous visit earlier in the year.

“At least we know why they were so willing to play ball.”  Regina’s Secretary of State, Granny Lucas, sneered.  “Always an ulterior motive with that pirate.”

“Well, what’s their endgame here?”  Emma cut to the chase well, especially in a crisis.  “They may have blown their own men up on purpose to create an international incident, but what will they gain out of it?”

“They want the missile sites.”

Regina frowned.  The sites were obvious, but there was something more to this that she was missing.  Not unlike Emma’s lie-detecting superpower, she always seemed to know when something was about to go horribly pear-shaped.

The instinct had saved her career many times, but she always had a plan.

“They want the missiles and something else, and we need to figure out what that something else is before they make their next move.”

Granny’s aide -- her granddaughter, Ruby -- poked her head inside the room.  Regina waved her in, hoping to hear some good news from the younger woman, but her face was grim.

“What’s wrong?” Granny asked.

“Israel just restricted their airspace against all foreign traffic.  They’ve publicly threatened to shoot down any and all foreign aircraft.”

“Of course they did,” Emma groaned.  The aide shifted on her feet a little.

Regina had a feeling Russia had already made their next move.  “And?”

“And President Ivanov is explicitly ignoring that declaration and boarding a aircraft bound straight for the site.”

“They wouldn’t shoot down a head of state!”

Regina was sure Granny was correct, but the Russians were showboating, and taking huge risks to do so.  She glanced at Emma, whose gaze seemed to be studying her own expression, face was set in the same uneasy, contemplative scowl she was near-certain her own was bent into.

“I need to talk to Ivanov.”

“With all due respect, Madam President, are you sure that’s a good idea?  He’s not exactly your biggest fan, and even if he were...”  Emma trailed off, and Regina thought she may have picked up on her thoughts.

If his obvious goal was to get missile sites from the United States, his real goal had to involve them, as well.

“I need to speak to Ivanov,” she repeated.

“I’ll arrange it,” Granny replied.

 

* * *

 

Somewhere between becoming president and where she was now, nearing two years removed, something in her had changed.  She didn't know how to feel about it, nor was she entirely sure if it was positive, but the ruthless, cutthroat woman that won the presidency was not the same woman who now occupied it.  When the last President abandoned his office to her, he’d called it survivorship.  The word struck her as odd, having only ever correlated it with illness, and brazen and confident as she was she’d made a point of it.

The man shook his head and sighed.  "Regina," he said, still the seated president and she between offices, "how old do I look?"

She stopped herself from replying immediately--he looked damn near eighty, and she would have said so had her sharp memory not immediately corrected itself with his real age of sixty-three.  The revelation must have shown on her face, because he smiled wearily and nodded.

"Whatever you think this job will take out of you, it will take three times more," he said.  "Four years will drain twelve.  Eight will drain twenty four.  You will put energy into something and this seat will take twice as much from you without your consent, like some kind of dark magic curse.  One day, you'll look in the mirror and you won't recognize yourself."

Regina had given that fake, polite, politician smile and nodded, saying what in return, she couldn’t remember. Her mind had been occupied with everything her coming days - years - would contain. She’d pushed her predecessors words back into her memory and forgotten about them...or so she’d thought. As the weeks and months and now years passed, she realized they had stuck with her, branded indelibly into her memory and returning to her in the hardest, longest moments on the toughest of days.

Today was shaping up to be one of those days.

Her fingers were pinched together over the bridge of her nose, her other hand splayed against the polished wood surface of her desk forming something just short of a claw.

Kirill Ivanov, on the other end of the speakerphone call, might have been smiling that same grin he wore before he demanded Emma Swan as a condition for cooperation.

“Your threats are meaningless to us, Madame President,” he said.  “The UN will never sanction us, and we have the right to defend the lives of our soldiers.  This detail was assigned to Russian troops on the very night of the explosion, and I have to think that was on purpose.”

“There’s a rotation,” she replied.  “It was Russia’s night for that detail.  The order wasn’t changed, and no one was skipped.  It could have been any country’s soldiers out there that night.”

“But it was us, so we will do the investigating.”

“You’re successfully antagonizing both Israel and Pakistan,” Regina said, “and neither country have any intelligence to share about insurgent operations along that border.”

“You would honestly expect them to?”

Regina was quiet for a moment.  Ordinarily, she wouldn’t expect the two countries to share anything, but this was a special case.

As Emma had pointed out, they don’t often agree.

“I wouldn’t expect them to share information they do not have...and I strongly suspect they don’t have any.  I also strongly suspect you would not be out in the desert if you didn’t have something to gain for it.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the phone line.  “Why don’t you join me, and then perhaps we can discuss what it is the Russian people need.”

It was a trap -- she could see him in her mind as a hunter, taunting the bear into charging through the soft underbrush, a minefield of claw traps between the doomed creature and its cruel killer.

This was exactly what he wanted, but she still didn’t understand why.

“Why don’t you come back to the White House, instead?”

“I wouldn’t impose upon your hospitality again,” he replied, “and I believe my presence is required here, among my soldiers.  It’s good for morale.”

“And my presence is needed here, in my country,” she replied.  “We both have our duties to attend to.”

“Your energy resolution is one of them, correct?  Come out to the desert, Madame President.  Let us discuss what we might have to offer each other.”

Two years ago, Regina wouldn’t have hesitated.  Even a year ago, she might have given up everything he wanted to put that platform feather in her cap for reelection.  Politically, it could benefit her to go to the desert, to cave a little more into his ridiculous demands to get the resolution passed and Russia out of the Jordan valley.  The party expected her ruthlessness to help them keep Congress heading into a new election cycle.

At that moment in time, she was positioned to fail unless something she campaigned on started to materialize fast...and Ivanov knew it.

But the presidency changes people...and Regina had increasingly found herself more interested in doing things that actually benefitted the American people.

The easy road to the energy resolution -- which if she were honest, didn’t do enough to reduce greenhouse emissions and help the environment -- wasn’t one of them if it meant Russia could put her country over a barrel for it.

“No,” she replied.  “You and I can discuss that right now.  I know you want the missile sites, and I’ve offered you the ones nearest your border before.  That’s on the table, if only to convince you to let UN investigators into the area.”

A pause.  “What if I told you that is not enough?”

He was playing ball.  Thank god.

“Tell me what else you want.”

“I will do as you ask...for those missile sites.  And I will even sign your resolution…if.”

“Go on,” she encouraged, her teeth grit together in exasperation.  He was quiet for a moment -- a dramatic pause, she supposed, before he delivered that one variable she couldn’t figure out.

“I want you to fire Emma Swan.”

She didn’t make a sound but every bit of air left her lungs anyway. 


	11. Chapter 11

“You said _what?!_ ”

Regina expected something like anger from the woman standing before her -- she got that and more.  Emma was on her feet, barely restraining herself from leaning over the desk, her voice loud enough to probably be heard beyond the walls of the office.  It was uncharacteristic of her Chief of Staff to break professional protocol under any circumstance (even when being molested by a foreign dignitary) and that self-control, she knew, was something the other woman had fought very hard to acquire. Regina allowed the lapse -- this conversation, after all, was about the other woman’s career.

“I told him in no uncertain terms that the staffing decisions in my administration would not be dictated by any entity other than myself.”

“Regina!  Why?!”

Her eyebrow shot up at the informal use of her name in the Oval.  “Because that is exactly the truth.”

“You could have had the energy resolution!  You could have had exactly what you needed to turn your approval rating around!  And you threw it away over my job?”

Regina paused, taken aback by Emma’s outrage even though she really didn’t expect anything different.  Perhaps the most remarkable of Emma’s many attributes was her loyalty, and nothing either in their clandestine relationship or their very potent working one would ever have hinted at the possibility of any other reaction.

The truth was, Emma was right.  Regina needed a win, and a big one, and it’s the nature of politics sometimes that those wins be purchased with other people’s careers.  It would not be the first time she let someone go because it was politically expedient.

Yet here, she hesitated.

“Emma, I threw it away over the principle.  Ivanov thinks he can have whatever he wants, that he can bully his way into it and that he will win every time.  Isn’t it the job of this office to take stands against that kind of behavior when lives are in the balance?”

“But over me?  How the hell is my position so important to either of you?”  The question cut a little, because the truth was, Regina didn’t have the words for an answer.  The cutthroat manipulator that remained in Regina, the strategist that won the presidency at the youngest age in history, began to calculate the benefits of winning.  She could build on the victory toward a second term.  She could get some international players on board with other measures she needed to take to help that goal along.  She could possibly mitigate the damage that would be done if Ivanov let slip the demand he made.

But something inside her was horrified by even the thought of going down that path, and stopped the line of thought before it came to its conclusion.  Besides, the biggest question was still without an answer -- why was Kirill Ivanov so interested in a woman who would never sleep with him?

Emma finally came to stand still in front of the desk again, and leaned over it so that their faces came as close together as either would dare at work.

“Regina, I came to work for a ruthless politician.  I knew what I was getting into, and I will do whatever it takes to protect you and help you.  You know that.  I expected that one day, I might be put into a position where the best thing I can do for you is leave.  But what I didn’t expect was this...hesitation you’ve developed.  You’ve changed.”

The president closed her eyes, sighed deeply, and let herself take the time to arrange the words in her mind carefully before speaking them.  “I know,” was all she could come up with.

“Why?”

The long answer was that whatever was left of that woman she was disliked the idea of giving up anything to Kirill Ivanov, and wanted to fight tooth and nail in an open political battlefield and beat the man soundly at his own disgusting game.  But it was also about the point of conflict -- she cared about Emma Swan.  She liked and trusted the staff that had been put together around her, and she was inclined to protect all of those people.”

“Because whatever I was when I walked into this office, when you walked into this office, you have made me a better person, and maybe the country deserves one of those as its president.”

Emma looked stunned -- her jaw slackened and her lips parted as those words processed through her brain.  It lasted only a moment, though.

“I think we might have navigated the impact of losing my job.”

“We’ve got enough to deal with.  Russia isn’t taking my offer.  They’re going to start a war, unless we can find a way to force them out.”

“I could resign.”

“And I wouldn’t accept it.”

“Regina--”

“No, Emma.”  She shook her head, determined.  Maybe before she would have done the easy thing and let Emma fall on her own sword, but not now.  “No.  He won’t win like that.  He doesn’t deserve to win like that.”

Emma stood before Regina a beat longer, and for a moment Regina expected Emma’s noble nature to continue to struggle against a decision that might have ultimately ended both their careers in the way neither of them had honestly expected.  Regina thought on that as Emma continued to stare her down, considered the possibility that she was committing one kind of career suicide to spare herself another, and though she quickly cast the idea aside as ridiculous there was a thin thread of truth in the edges of that thought -- she would do nearly anything to spare Emma any embarrassment, but the longer they stayed together, the more likely it was that Henry would be hurt in whatever fallout they were inevitably headed to.  

Emma finally settled down and took a seat, slumped and somewhat put-off, but finally resigned.  “Okay,” she said, “how do we--”

A knock at the door, and some commotion on the other side of it, interrupted them.  Her assistant usually did a better job at dealing with the traffic outside, and Regina could hear Aurora’s normally-docile tones animatedly mingling with others.  She hit a button on her phone, and let them through before they broke the door down.

The rest of her staff flooded in, each of them various forms of perturbed and concerned.  Belle’s blue eyes looked near-full with tears, Tink (whose name, Regina always had to remind herself, was also Belle, but they needed a nickname to distinguish the one from the other) was as close to enraged as she had ever seen the short, spirited woman, and Mulan had a book wrapped tightly in her arms, her unusual propriety perhaps the only outward tell the woman would give, the words FAMILY LAW emblazoned across the cover of the large volume she clung to.

“What the hell is going on?” Regina asked, dread slowly creeping down her spine.

“Senator Gold just held a press conference,” Belle explained.

“He does so frequently,” she quipped back, frowning.  “He’s the senate majority leader.”

The three were quiet for a long time before Mulan -- level-headed, reliable, intelligent Mulan -- began to speak.

“Emma...he found out that you gave up a son for adoption.  He found out who the father was, and he plans to sue for custody.”

Emma’s eyes went wide with shock.  “He can’t do that,” she replied.  “The adoption was closed, and completely legal.  I didn’t need the father’s permission to give the baby up.”

The other woman sighed, shifting the book to one hand to push her long black hair back with the other.  “Well he thinks he found a loophole,” Mulan replied.  “And he might have a case.  Somehow, the adoption was mishandled.  Agency didn’t file the right paperwork, possible jurisdictional issues...it’s a legal mess.  It’s not one that should matter, in any normal case, but…”

Emma sat back down and covered her face with her hands.  “But I’m Chief of Staff to the President of the United States, and my boss is his political opponent, and he wants this office.”  Her hands slid down her face to drop to her lap.  “I swear there is no way I could possibly be a bigger political liability today and I haven’t even finished my coffee yet.”

Regina came around the desk and, for just a moment, let her guard down long enough to reach out and grasp Emma’s shoulder.  “We’ll fight for this boy, Emma.”  The stricken woman nodded and placed her hand, maybe unconsciously, over Regina’s.  

“What Gold is doing is going to have a lot of people angry, and we can use that and the press to keep him protected before he and his family get dragged too far in.”

Emma nodded, as Regina turned back to the rest of her staff.  “Do we know who the boy is?  Please tell me Gold didn’t release his name.”

The three women looked at one another, and each looked fearful for a split second.  “He did, Ma’am,” Belle replied.

She stifled a curse -- the hand on Emma’s shoulder tightened, as did Emma’s hand over her own.  “Okay,” Regina started, drawing the word out slow enough to let some of the seething rage loose, “let’s get the family on the phone and find out what we can do to help.”

“We don’t have to…” Tink muttered.

Silence reigned in the office for several seconds.  Regina, eyebrow raised, was about to just tell them to spit out whatever they were hiding when Emma did it for her.

“For the love of your jobs, start doing them and tell us who this kid is.”

Mulan sighed, and put the book on the President’s desk, with a file folder atop it, and a picture paperclipped to the front.

Henry’s face, cheery and bright as it was during his last class photo, smiled smiled up at them all from the desk.


	12. Chapter 12

The air in the residence kitchen was thick with the sweet, warm butter smell of fresh-baked pastries, the scent drifting out of the kitchen and down through the long, open hallway to tease anyone who walked through the rest of the residence. Outside the windows, heavy snowfall obscured the lawns from view and darkness was falling quickly, the light bleeding from pewter, to dull onyx. Two pies and a batch of cookies covered the surface of the kitchen island and another tray had just gone in the oven. There was a pile of dishes in the sink, a streak of flour on Regina’s nose, and after two hours the angry, white static in her ears had barely diminished. It was only in the last half an hour that her hands had stopped shaking.  

Henry was in his bedroom, aware that Emma would be joining them for dinner and that they would be discussing a very important issue, but not what the issue was, nor its nature, nor its significance to him.  Her son was bright, however -- she didn’t miss the way his eyebrows dipped into skepticism, and how his lips pursed in momentary contemplation before he decided to keep his questions to himself.  It was a familiar look -- sometimes, through glances on a pane of glass or in a mirror, she would see it on her own face as she contemplated the wisdom of saying something.

She still had no idea what to tell him -- it wasn’t simply that he was going to be used as a pawn in a political battle.  The issue was the possibility, if slim, that the legal battle could fall the wrong way.

The issue was the slim possibility that she would lose custody of Henry.

“How many more pies are you gonna make?  The leftovers from Christmas are still feeding the staff.”

Regina glanced quickly toward the source of the voice, a shadow in the doorway, familiar in shape.  She brought her hands together over the sink, dislodging the flour from her hands in a great white puff and letting it settle in the basin before dusting off the dregs with a kitchen towel.  “It’s therapeutic.”  Regina made a face as she turned to the doorway.  “Usually.”

“I think today merits something a little stronger.”  Emma raised her hands -- a crystal decanter was in one, two glasses  pinched between the fingers of the other.  She stepped fully into the kitchen, and placed her finds on the island next to the fresh pie.  Regina sighed and settled onto a bar stool next to her.

“We still need to talk to Henry.”

Emma nodded, and poured enough for one shot in each glass.  “Let’s get you a little calmer first.”  Regina watched the amber liquid pour, the fading daylight and the pendant fixtures above the counter tossing an alluring mixture of streaks through the cut crystal.

“How are you so...unperturbed by this?”

They raised their glasses together, and downed the single gulp of whiskey at the same time.  Shots were not their style, typically -- The president stocked nothing less than the best spirits available -- but today merited a long list of exceptions.  Emma put her glass back down on the counter, and poured herself another, this one intended for sipping.

“This might not be my first drink,” she replied.  “I might have pre-gamed in my office, after Mulan finished giving me legal advice.”

“What did she have to say?”

Emma shrugged.  “It should be fairly easy as the surviving actual parent to settle the legal disputes.  Gold is using Neal’s will as leverage, which I guarantee you was something he got off of LegalZoom and not from an actual lawyer, even though he could have picked any one of them.”

“So it’s pretty generic language?”

“Yep.  Division of assets, acknowledgement of issue….he didn’t know he had any kids, and he certainly didn’t own property.  His father owned everything he wasn’t renting.”

Gold was a lot of things, but stupid wasn’t one of them.  Will or no, he thought he had enough legal leverage -- or, somehow, political currency -- to make his effort to “unify his family” as he put it somehow noble.

“How the hell did he even find out about it?” Emma wondered, not for the first time.

Regina frowned, deeply, and stared into her drink.  Before she adopted Henry, she had made sure to dot her own I’s and cross her own T’s, because it would never do to have her adopted son as a political liability.  It was for her protection, as well as his -- she had aspirations for the presidency, and she knew her opponents would be ruthless in their attempt to ruin her first.  The fact that those efforts had somehow failed, that her son was being used against her anyway…

“That’s a fight for another time.  Right now, we have a dinner to eat and a…”  She shook her head and sighed.  “We have a son to brief over dinner.”

Emma looked around.  “Where is dinner?  Or are we just eating pie?”

“I have a kitchen staff,” she replied dryly.  “Roast is in the warmer.”

They set the table, then called Henry in.  He was cheery, as any kid on vacation might be after spending all day doing whatever they wanted, and happy as he often was that Emma was joining them.

But he was always a quick kid -- he picked up on their somber mood immediately, and his usual chatter ground quickly to a halt as he waited, seemingly patiently, for the adults to tell him why they weren’t smiling at his stories.

Regina wanted the conversation out of the way, anyway -- she wanted Henry to digest it as he digested his meal, and hoped he was too young to suffer from the heartburn she already felt.

“Henry, there’s something we want to talk to you about.”

He reached for his glass of water, frowning a bit, as if he was working something out in his head.  Finally, his eyes lit up again and he smiled.

“Are you two getting married?”

Emma nearly choked on her water.  Regina nearly dropped her glass.  “What?  No.  No, we’re--”

“Because it would be okay if you did.”

“Uh...it’s not that, kid.”  Emma’s eyes darted to Regina, briefly, and she met them, before they went back to Henry.  “There was a problem today at work, and you need to know about it.”

He looked confused, understandably -- never had there been a problem with work that Henry needed to be told about.  The concept was as foreign to him as the stock market and college tuition.  Regina reached across the table and put her hand over her son’s smaller, downturned palm.  “Henry, you know how adoption works, right?”

He nodded.  “Yeah, Mom, we’ve talked about that.  Someone can’t raise a baby, so they give it to people that can.  Like you.”

“Right.”  She took a deep breath, let it out, and started to say what she’d dreaded saying all day.  “Listen…it turns out your biological father was the son of a Senator that doesn’t like me very much.  The senator found out who your parents were, and he’s making a fuss about it.  It’s going to be a big deal for a while.”

“But...you’re my mom.”

She smiled at him -- the simple statement meant worlds to her.  “Yes.  Yes I am.  But he’s trying to use you to get to me, and…” she sighed, and looked to Emma for help, a non-verbal tag out.

“Henry…” Emma drew his gaze and attention, and took his other hand in hers.  “Ten years ago, I was dating a really lousy guy.  I got pregnant, but I was afraid I couldn’t offer the baby much of a life, and I knew my boyfriend couldn’t.  I didn’t have a great childhood.  I just wasn’t going to be much of a mother.  So I gave the baby up.”

“Yeah, like my parents did.”

Emma frowned almost imperceptibly.  “Uh, yeah.  Exactly.  Actually...it turns out I’m your mother.  You’re the baby I gave up.”

It took Henry a few seconds to process the information, and in that space Regina watched her son’s face go through a remarkable cycle -- from confusion, to contemplation, and then finally, somehow, to his widest, happiest grin.

“So you’re my mom,” he said, pointing at Emma.  “But….you’re my Mom,” he continued, pointing at Regina.  Then he turned back to Emma.  “And you’re dating my Mom.”

“Yeah...that’s exactly it.”

His smile stayed fixed.  “Okay!”

“You’re okay with this?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?  Mom, Emma makes you really happy.  It’s really nice to see.  And it’s not like she’s going to take me away from you.”  He frowned, then faced Emma.  “Right?”

“I would never dream of it, kid.”

And that was that -- Henry dug into his food and chatted amiably about the things he did that day, and the two adults suddenly found themselves not only with an appetite, but with humors, and laughed along with the boy.

Regina was amazed by the boy she had somehow managed to raise to be a wonderful kid...though now knowing who his biological mother was, she thought maybe it was as much genetics as anything she did.

She was proud of her son.

She was proud of their son.


	13. Chapter 13

“They’re not budging.”

The president pinched the bridge of her nose.  Of course they weren’t.

The Secretary of State had spent most of the previous day and the morning wrangling ambassadors and heads of states from every middle-eastern country with a vested interest in Russian activity...which as it happened, turned out to be a lot of them.  Israel may not have shot down President Ivanov’s aircraft, but the fact that they didn’t was anything but good -- they made a promise, and the Israeli government had a tendency to belligerently keep those.

Russia was trying to draw a conflict, and force the United States to hold up its end of a treaty...or give up assets that just weren’t particularly political.

“Ivanov is a stubborn jackass,” Regina replied.  Granny was the only other person, besides Emma, who was made aware of his specific demands, and that was a decision made only to allow the woman to do her job the right way.  The president had been gratified when the older woman nodded tacitly and agreed with her stance -- whatever the reason, it was not a politically sound move to allow a foreign dignitary to make staffing decisions in the White House.  Everyone serves at the pleasure of the President...but not that president.

“That he is...which is why I think this will escalate to bloodshed.”

The older woman had spent her career around intelligence, and what parts of it she hadn’t spent involved in classified operations, she had spent organizing them.  Far from her ability to plan, however, Granny’s demeanor was exactly the kind you needed from a person who would be your top negotiator to foreign organizations.  Regina had grown to trust her opinions, if not always her motives.  “What are our options?  How do we embarrass that man out of the desert?”

“We’re setting up an emergency UN meeting,” Granny responded.  “Also, we’ll be coordinating with Israel and Palestine to pass a resolution to slap them with sanctions, and grant troops permission to usher them out.”

“The Russians will shoot.”

“Let’s hope we can fight a PR war and win it before that happens.  Confer with your staff, but I think it would be helpful once we get this set up if you make a public statement.”

Regina let her eyes narrow as she spoke.  “I’ll have to rehearse it, or I might slip and say what I really think.”

Granny smiled and nodded, just as Emma poked her head into the room.  Finished for now, the president dismissed the older woman, and let her Chief of Staff in.

She had been fighting another battle of mutual importance.

For a woman who had spent the spent the better part of the morning with white house counsel going over personal legal options, she looked pretty well put-together.  But then, when Regina sat down again and Emma followed suit, the subtle signs of fatigue settled into Emma’s familiar features.  Her shoulders slumped, there were bags under her eyes that makeup couldn’t hide anymore, and the lines around her mouth were deeper than Regina could recall ever seeing them.

“That bad?”

“There’s a reason I didn’t go into family law.”

“And here I thought it was because you were interested in politics.”

That earned a smile, at least.

“Everyone seems to agree on two things:  first, that establishing that Neal is the father will be difficult given that I didn’t name him on the birth certificate and that he’s dead.  Second, the state of New York doesn’t really care about grandparent’s rights.”

“How did this happen at all?  You gave him up in New York.  I adopted him three days later in Maine.”

“No one seems to have that answer yet.”  Emma pinched the bridge of her nose.  “They’re looking into it.  The short story is Gold doesn’t have a case, and he has to know it, so this is a political stunt of some kind.  More than defending ourselves against a court case, we need to figure out what his real motives are.  This isn’t the kind of move you make for short-term gains.”

Regina smiled, just slightly, over Emma’s use of the word “we.”  Their court cases would be separate, even if the results would be mutually beneficial, but there was comfort in the idea that, whatever had to be done to protect Henry, they would do it together.

In the meantime, there was politics to be played.

“He wants to smear your character...and by proxy, mine.”

Emma’s head fell backward against the upholstery, her eyes closed, the most minute shift in the way she carried her shoulders showing just how weary she was.  “Are you sure you won’t just accept my resignation?”

“More positive than ever.”

Emma watched her boss over her own cheekbones for a moment, then sighed.  “So...what now?”

That seemed to be question of the day, and the president didn’t have any good answers, but she did have an answer.  She was through playing defense, especially with her son in play.

“Call a press conference.”

Emma’s head came back up.  “Now?”

“Yes now.  Get Belle to have the press corps in the press room in 30 minutes.  I think it’s time we take some swings of our own.”

If Regina expected Emma to argue, she would have been disappointed -- she smiled, and nodded.  Perhaps she was as eager as Regina to throw some metaphorical punches.

“We’ll get some lines written up,” she replied.

“Good.”  Regina stood, and Emma went for the door.  “And Emma?”

“Yes, Ma’am?”

“No gloves.”

She nodded.  And smiled.  “Yes, Madame President.”

 

* * *

 

The first time Regina Mills walked in front of brightly-lit stage lights, surrounded by news cameras and clamoring reporters, she was a fresh face on the political landscape -- a 26-year-old from tiny Storybrooke running for a seat in the state House of Representatives, facing an incumbent that had held the position, having navigated the eight-consecutive-year term limit twice, for thirty years.

Her odds were hopeless -- her campaign was laughed at by the seated congressman, but she wasn’t in the game for backwater politics.  Her destination was elsewhere, higher, and despite the fact that she could have simply waited two years for his newest term limit to expire, she wanted the challenge of unseating the man.  She needed the notoriety that would come with the achievement if she wanted to move on.

The state legislature was a first and temporary step, and in thirty years, the incumbent congressman had collected many skeletons in his poorly-secured closet.  When she exposed them to daylight, it wasn’t just local news -- the entire nation took note of the young upstart kicking the corrupt, lecherous, felonious old powermonger out of his allegedly-stolen seat, and then used her victory as a platform to discuss election reforms.

The cameras loved her.  Regina had always been articulate, and her wit was sharp.  The people in the room now were familiar, some having covered her even back then, but they were hardly friends.

She would need that sharpness now.

There were not usually so many cameras in the back of the room, but when the president calls an impromptu press conference, they have a tendency to appear with a dozen friends.  Where there wasn’t a camera, there was a body.  Where there wasn’t a body, there was a cell phone out to record her words.  The room was hot and sticky, and entirely unprepared for so many people in a single room with the heater on.

“I’ll make this short,” she started.

The sheets of paper in her hand were hand-written notes, pressure points that she knew she needed to hit.  Belle and Emma both had been displeased with her decision to reject the prepared statements, but she needed to go off-script:  she wanted to tear Gold apart, and leave Ivanov with at least a good scar.

She just had to be...presidential about it.

“Yesterday morning, as you all know, Russian troops assigned to a UN peacekeeping mission were caught in an explosion of unknown origin on a routine patrol on the Israel-Pakistan border.  The Russians have secured the area, and refuse to allow a team of UN investigators, or anyone from either country near the blast site, and President Ivanov has flagged an Israeli no-fly restriction to travel to the site.”  

Regina paused for effect, and for a breath.  

“Why remains a mystery, though he claims it’s for morale, and he and the Russian state department have used the incident as leverage against this country, and possibly others.  President Ivanov and I spoke over the phone yesterday -- he stated his terms for pulling out of the region.  Those terms read more like a ransom letter, and were a direct attempt to influence the inner workings of this administration, and the policies of this country.

“There will be an emergency meeting at the UN, at which Israel, Pakistan, and the United States will request the immediate and forcible removal of Russian soldiers.  The unreasonable nature of Russian requests and their irrelevance to the situation at hand are enough evidence to suggest that this action is an aggressive land grab, and should not be tolerated.  In the coming days, my staff and Secretary Lucas will keep you apprised of the situation.”

She paused again, long enough to glance over toward the side, where Emma stood with her arms crossed over her chest, frowning her general disapproval of the situation.  She still wanted to resign rather than face the possibility of political bloodshed.

That was exactly why Regina wanted to keep her.

“The second item is a more personal issue, which most if not all of you have already heard about, and which also broke yesterday.  On this issue, I feel compelled to lead with my disappointment.  Senator Gold, in a press conference, has announced that he is going to pursue legal action for custody of my son, whom he believes is his biological grandson.”

She paused there, and shifted -- for this, she was no longer just a president.  She was a mother protecting her child.

"Whether or not it is true that my son Henry is his grandson, regardless of whether or not my Chief of Staff, Emma Swan, is his biological mother, the process involved with uncovering the legally-sealed records required to prove it would not only be unethical, but also illegal.  This attempt to garner some kind of favor with the public as the sympathetic lost grandfather puts front and center Senator Gold’s lack of regard for our legal system and families with adopted children.  It also grossly violates my privacy, Miss Swan’s privacy, and my son’s privacy, and I can speak for my Chief of Staff when I say that it is the latter that infuriates us both the most.  No grown man has any business using a ten-year-old boy as political leverage.  As a result, both Miss Swan and I will be filing separate lawsuits against Senator Gold.  This is another issue you will undoubtedly all hear more about in the coming months.”

The silence in the room, filled with lights and technology, had its own high volume -- the press was, somehow, stunned.  She pushed aside the observation -- good or bad, she couldn’t tell -- and leaned forward to place her hands upon either side of the podium.

“My scruple with both these issues is this:  I am used to being baited, and taunted, and called names.  I am a politician, and this is part of my job.  The people who work for me in the various levels of administration do their jobs best when they are not playing politics, and when they are left to perform their functions without the impediment of a personal attack that should have been aimed at me.  I, as any president should, will stand with anyone close to this office made to personally suffer in my name...most especially if that person is my son.”

She didn’t wait for questions, though the entire room rose to ask one.  She left the dais as furious as she had been when she stepped upon it, as had been her intention.

You do not fuck with the people Regina Mills cares about.

Her staff followed her out, except for Belle, who had a limited set of details she could follow up with.  Emma said nothing, but the frown she wore wasn’t as deep, and her shoulders were not as tense.  There was something to be said for that, Regina supposed -- the rest would come in time, as they worked their way through the issues and attempted to salvage something out of it for a legacy.

Her personal assistant -- a tall, blonde young woman named Elsa, met the group halfway back to the office and handed her a note.  she opened it, read it, and stopped.

“What is it?” Emma asked.  Regina didn’t respond before she handed the note off and continued on to the Oval office.

Senator Gold was on his way to the White House, and he demanded time with the president.

As much as she was tempted to turn him away at the door, Regina decided she would take the meeting.  She had one or two things to say to him while they were fresh on her mind.

“Elsa, do you remember the carpet I asked you to order a few months back?”

“Yes, Madame President.”

“I need it placed in my office immediately.  No one gets to disrespect this office today.”

 

* * *

 

The sun was setting, and at the end of the day, during the winter months, the light in the Oval trended toward soft tones of warm light.  Yet somehow, through the filters of the curtains and splashed across the warm hardwood of the office furniture, the light became far too bright and angry for the winter months spent so distant from the sun.

On some days, this was an inconvenience to Regina -- the glare came through the windows, splashed across paper and computer screens, made it hard to see text.  It also backlit her desk and shrouded her in light.

Some staffer or another had termed it God Mode -- she wasn’t entirely certain what that meant, but that was certainly the impression she was going for tonight.

“You can stay, if you like,” she told Emma, who was standing nervously just off to the side.

“I might be a distraction,” Emma replied.  “I’ve been the focus of enough attention this week.”

“This involves you, too.”

Her chief of staff considered those words, head tilted to the side and lips pursed.  “I’ll eavesdrop if you don’t mind, Madame President, but legally there is no cause for me to participate in this conversation at this time.  I gave up my parental rights years ago.  Henry is your son.  I am just a family friend.”

“You’re more than that,” Regina corrected, “but if you’d like to skulk from the rafters instead of watch from the front row, it’s your decision.”

“I never skulk, Madame President.”

Her intercom buzzed to alert her that Gold had arrived -- with a nod, Regina dismissed Emma, who left to stand in the Cabinet Room and...skulk.

Senator Gold walked in, not a wrinkle in his tailored suit, grinning his trademark Cheshire Cat grin.

The president settled into her chair and draped her arms across the sides, and didn’t bother to get up, forcing him to sit across from her in one of the extra chairs rather than on the more comfortable couch he typically sprawled across.

Halfway to the desk, he paused, his eyes cast downward to the newly-installed area rug covering a section of the beige carpet.

“Redecorating?”

She didn’t take the bait.  “Sit down, Senator.”

He kept his grin, but said nothing -- in sitting down, the light came directly through the windows.  He was made to immediately squint.

She smiled, if ever so slightly.

“I assume you know why I requested this meeting,” he said.

“You didn’t request it, Senator.  You demanded it.  But I’ll get to that later -- we have more important things to discuss.”

“Yes.”  He crossed his legs over, and held his cane like a sword by a throne, tip down and straight, a weapon more than a walking stick.  “Let’s discuss how your Chief of Staff falsified my grandson’s birth record and put him up for adoption illegally.”

“Your son was an entitled, spoiled brat that wasted his life on drink, drugs, and women, Gold.  Let’s not pretend the man was a wholesome role model for any little boy.”

“Nonetheless, he still had a legal right to know he had a son, and Emma Swan denied him that right.”

Regina tilted her head.  “There is more than enough precedence in family law to argue that leaving the baby’s father unnamed was justified in your son’s case.  There is no court in this country that will rule in your favor.”

“Sixty-eight percent of my constituents believe the father of an unborn child has rights, too.”

“Sixty-eight percent of your constituents haven’t read your son’s FBI file.  I have...and I am very willing to let all of your constituents read it when my lawyer admits it as evidence in my countersuit.  You would do well to remember how many times you had to get him out of doing serious jail time, and really hope no one comes forward that might remember important details.  Like who you bribed.  And how much you paid.”

Gold twisted his cane in his hand, into the carpet -- a tell, Regina could see now.

“Miss Swan is not as spotless as you believe her to be,” he continued.  “I have her FBI file, as well.”

“You don’t think I personally read all of that before I hired her?”

“Oh I believe you did, Dearie, but the American people deserve to know the caliber of person steering White House policy.”

“They already do.  They elected me.  And you know, that’s something you’re just going to have to get over for a few more years.”

The man tilted his head, perhaps for effect, perhaps to use the shadow of her head to blot out the blinding sunlight.

“You’ve changed, Dearie,” he said.  “You’re not as cutthroat as you were a year ago.  Certainly the woman the people elected would never have gone to such lengths to protect a single person as you have today, let alone a woman she has only really known for seven months.  I have to wonder what...charms the indomitable Regina Mills that she’s become such a--” he stopped for a moment, and let his face contort into a sneer, “humanitarian.”

The familiarity still bugged her -- they were not friends, and never had been -- but she let it and the insinuations he hurled at her slide for the moment.  “I’ve always been a humanitarian, Senator,” she replied, “but let’s be honest here -- most politicians are only barely human.”

“Congress would be disappointed to hear you say that.”

“Maybe, but my approval rating would probably go up if I said it in public.”  She leaned forward.  “And that’s what we’re really talking about here, isn’t it?  You want my job, and you think a scandal like this will smear my character.”

“Won’t it?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because you aren’t just attacking my Chief of Staff.  You’re attacking a child.”  She stood slowly and leaned over her desk, as she had over the podium during the press conference.  “You’re going to leave my son out of your political campaign.”

“In exchange for what?”

“Nothing.”

He laughed, more of a scoff really.  “I don’t believe you have a firm grasp on the concept of how politics works, my dear.”

“And I don’t believe you have a firm grasp on who it is you’re talking to, Gold.  When you address me, you will address me as Madame President, and you will follow every proper protocol required of visitors to this White House...and in this house, when the President stands, nobody sits.”

The smirk finally came off his face, and he stood slowly in response.

“You can fight my adoption all you want, but we both know you will lose...and for using my son as a ploy in your bid for this office, I will bury you in the polls.  I expect you to run against me, and I expect it to be dirty...but you will leave him out of this.  And when you leave here tonight, you’re going to strongly consider a public apology to my son for the trouble you have already caused him.”

She straightened to her full height.  “And you are leaving right now.”

He stood still for a few moments, his face unreadable, then bowed slightly at the waist.  “Yes, Madame President.”

It was seconds after the door closed behind him that Emma walked back in from the Cabinet Room, grinning for the first time since any of their current crises had hit.

“Well?”

Emma shifted awkwardly, a shy smile creeping across her face.

“Forgive me for being crass, Madame President, but….that was kinda hot.”


	14. Chapter 14

Much as she tried not to let them, Gold’s words stuck with Regina through the afternoon and into the evening, a dangerous mental parasite slowly sucking her confidence dry.  She was self-aware enough to know how she had been changed by her job, and by the people she surrounded herself with, but she had played by (and won by) the rules of politics taught by her mother. Regina mastered that rule book, used its lessons better than anyone, but in her entire career she had never even considered that there might be another playbook to examine.

Until now.

Emma had taught her better, somehow -- her administration had been plagued by major failures, but that made minor victories all the better.  They added up, slowly, like grains of sand in a jar of stones, and filled the gaps around the edges, and obscured the fact that the larger stones in the jar were actually just glass.

She lay in bed, tucked under the covers to the waist, reading a book that had been sitting on her nightstand so long she could scarcely remember what it was about.  Emma was sound asleep next to her, and would probably wake soon to go to the guest bedroom or run home.  Regina dreaded that moment -- she wanted Emma nearby for more than just pleasure, and she knew that desire was dangerous.

Yet here they were, mired in scandal and political power plays without any public knowledge of their relationship.  How much worse could it possibly get?

Regina had to resist running her hand through the thick hair, tracing patterns on exposed shoulders, kissing her way down the sleeping woman’s body from ear to hip before shifting her over onto her back against the deep blue sheets, before parting long, pale legs below her and drawing long, keening moans and sharp, shuddering gasps with a practiced tongue.  Again.

It had been a trying couple of days -- the woman deserved her sleep.

The president, however, could find none.

She reached for the nightstand, and a book that had been left there so long that she couldn’t remember what it was about anymore.  She found her place and attempted to read, but found herself reading the same paragraph over and over again with absolutely no comprehension.  Twenty minutes later and zero progress made, it was time to give up on the book -- with a sigh, she pushed it shut and returned it to the spot on the nightstand where she’s found it.

That left her alone with the soft glow of the lamp, the light snoring of her lover, and her own thoughts.

Gold had pushed too far -- White House counsel was fairly certain that he would lose both lawsuits, which opened him up to a slew of questions about abuse of power.  Tink expected that the president’s approval rating would go up as a result of his actions, especially after her impassioned and public defense of her son.

She wasn’t worried about the senator, not anymore -- she was worried about the Russians.

Ivanov would be on his way home by now, silently abandoning the desert and his men for the safer ground of the Kremlin.  The emergency session had gone as the United States wanted -- Russia was under severe trading sanctions until they abandoned their entrenchment and let UN investigators in.  The press, of course, wanted more details, and the White House cited national security every time someone asked for the specifics of Ivanov’s so-called unreasonable demands.

They Russians would give in, eventually...but Kirill Ivanov was a man who apparently held a grudge.  This would not be the last time he came after Emma.

“Regina?”

The groggy voice startled her out of her thoughts, and she looked over to the stirring woman at her side.

“I’m sorry.  Did I wake you?”

“No,” Emma responded.  “Your grip on my arm, though…”

She moved her hand to her lap -- she hadn’t even realized.  “Sorry.”

“No, it’s fine.  Are you okay?”

Emma rolled over to face Regina.  “Yes.  And no.  I was thinking about Ivanov.”

“Don’t tell him.  I’m sure he’d get off on that.”

She chuckled, and shook her head.  “How do you do that?  How do you always have a quip at the ready like that?”

Maybe Regina expected another sarcastic answer, but the pause and the silence warned of something more serious.

“It’s what happens when you grow up surrounded by people who think they’re better than you, I guess.”

“I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to hit a button.”

“No, it’s okay.”  She shifted, then sighed.  “I’m an adult, and I’m the president’s chief of staff.  I think i’m pretty well past the days when I got called an embarrassment by my siblings and trash by my schoolmates.”

Regina wanted to ask more questions.  She wanted to know why those children were so cruel, and why no one ever stepped in to help, but she also knew the answer -- the elite only ever looked after themselves, and they taught their children to do the same.  Politics had proved that well enough.

“That’ll show them,” she said instead, and it made Emma smile.

“Second most powerful person in the world?  Yeah.  I’ll take it.”

Regina pat Emma’s arm.  “Go back to sleep.  I’m sorry I woke you.”

“You need sleep, too.”

“I’ll be fine.”

The dim light cast across the bed by the lamp on the nightstand was enough for Regina to watch a disapproving frown cross Emma’s face.  She tilted her head in thought for a moment, let the frown deepen as she contemplated...something.  When she moved forward to capture Regina’s lips, there was no warning, but the soft, deep kiss was welcoming and tender, and Regina sighed into it.

They could be gentle together, though they often opted not to be.  There was something thrilling in the exertion and the challenge that sex together could become.  Emma’s lips were warm, her kisses reverent as they ambled through the valley between her breasts, down her belly, and…

This could only be described as lovemaking.  Perhaps it always was, in a way, but this was comfort and caring and giving wrapped in pleasure and release.  Emma’s feelings were made plain, carried and acknowledged on every gasp and shudder and moan that Regina couldn’t keep contained.

When Emma led her over the edge, Regina felt everything for a brief moment.  Hands, wrapped carefully around her, cradled her as she fell, soothed her as she landed in a state of blissful exhaustion.

Emma traced Regina’s jawline with her knuckles.  “Sleep.”

Through a languid haze, Regina felt the mattress shift as Emma began to rise from the bed.  Blindly, she reached out and found a slender wrist, held it fast.

_“Stay.”_

Through hooded eyes, Regina watched as Emma pondered the request.  After a long moment, Emma sighed and reached over Regina to switch off the bedside lamp before settling herself against Regina’s side, arms wrapped around her, head tucked up her shoulder.  Regina breathed deeply, content, caught the fresh, slightly citrus scent of familiar shampoo, and smiled.

Within seconds, she was finally relaxed.

Moments later, she was sound asleep.


End file.
